Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world's largest bank by market value, has launched 65 cooperative projects with South Africa-based Standard Bank after the two reached a share purchasing deal last year, Xinhua News Agencies reported on Monday.

As of end-March 2009, the two banks had cooperated on 65 projects with 9 of them already completed, the report said.

In February 2008, China's banking regulator approved ICBC's purchase of a 20 percent stake in South Africa's Standard Bank for $5.6 billion. After the acquisition, ICBC became the largest single shareholder of the African bank with 305 million share of common stock.

Recently, ICBC and Standard Bank had been confirmed by the government of Botswana as joint lead arrangers of syndicated loans to Africa's largest power project so far -- the Morupule B Power Station.

This funding plan includes a $825 million export buyer's credit and a $140 million bridge loan and is expected to help ICBC speak louder in the international power market and earn a good reputation in Africa.

ICBC got 1.213 billion rand cash dividends and stock dividends worth 589 million rand from Standard Bank after becoming the latter's biggest single shareholder. It is estimated that annual return for ICBC's investment in Standard Bank is about 7.7 percent, far more than investing in foreign bonds.

ICBC has intensified cooperation with Standard Bank in resource banking, corporate banking, investment banking, global financial markets and investment funds, said a spokesperson from ICBC.

Through cooperating with Standard Bank, ICBC has made more effort in product innovation, learning new technology and experience while also enriching its financial products and overseas business.

(Chinadaily.com.cn May 26, 2009)