The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has become the country's first bank to open currency exchange services for South Korean won, which has became one of the main components of a basket of currencies to which the yuan is pegged, Tuesday's Shanghai Morning Post reported.

The 54 outlets of ICBC's 11 branches in Shanghai, Beijing and Qingdao, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong, will become the first group to offer the services.

Over recent years, China and South Korea have enjoyed increasing exchanges in finance, trade, business, tourism and overseas-study. The tourist-traffic between the two countries topped 3.4 million last year, making China the top travel destination for South Koreans.

China is the largest trade partner of South Korea, with bilateral trade volume hitting US$90.068 billion last year, an increase of 42.4 percent from a year earlier, and expected to exceed US$100 billion this year.

Booming trade has driven-up demand for exchange services for the South Korean won, said an industry analyst.

Launching the service will help to crack-down on black-market transactions and standardize services, thus helping to maintain the stability and effectiveness of national currency policies, said an official with ICBC's Shanghai branch.

ICBC has two branches in South Korea, in Seoul and Pusan.

(Shanghai Daily August 16, 2005)