CCB Supports the Construction of Qinghai-Tibet Railway

The trial launch of the passenger train services of the second-phase of Qinghai-Tibet railway, Golmud-Lhasa line on July 1, 2006 which has drawn world-wide attention unveils the mysterious snow-capped Tibetan plateau, China’s northwestern frontier which was once out of reach for so many people. The operation of the entire Qinghai-Tibet railway, a historic political, economic, cultural and happy line, will surely have a far-reaching influence of bringing modernity to the poor Tibetan plateau, strengthening the solidarity and common prosperity of people of all nationalities along the line and promoting the rapid social and economic progress of Qinghai and Tibet.

While people are singing and dancing to celebrate the happy moment, every staff of CCB also feels especially encouraged. As early as in 1958 when the first phase of the Qinghai-Tibet railway started construction, CCB has been linked with this “sky road” which is second to none in the world. It has accompanied the road walking from the past and will continue to walk into tomorrow.

Fulfilling monitoring functions and ensuring project quality
1958 witnessed the launch of the construction of the first phase of Qinghai-Tibet railway, the Xining-Golmud line. CCB which as a special national bank at that time was responsible for national infrastructure construction administration shouldered the unshirkable responsibility of managing the construction fund of the railway.

It took 26 years to finish the first-phase project. During those years, the staffs of CCB, together with the builders of the railway, went through numerous hardships and worked extremely hard. On May 1, 1984, the Xining-Golmud line at long last was put into formal operation. Compared with road transport, the transport cost per ton of the railway is cut by RMB70. The completion of the first phase has greatly stimulated the exploitation of resources in Qaidam Basin, promoted the economic growth of Tibet, boosted the industrial, agricultural and husbandry development of the Tibetan plateau and strengthened the national solidarity.

Adopting various measures to provide quality services
On June 29, 2001, the second-phase Qinghai-Tibet railway, Golmud-Lhasa line which is the landmark project of the western development strategy, started construction, but far earlier the senior executives of the CCB headquarters and its local branches had visited the Ministry of Railway to introduce the bank’s services and products and recommend its project capital management plans. With rich experiences of serving railway project, CCB finally beat its competitors and won the exclusivity of issuing the Qinghai-Tibet railway national treasury bonds.

To provide the best financial services for the second-phase project, the CCB Qinghai branch put the railway construction services high on its agenda. CCB branch in Golmud, which is the starting point of the second-phase railway, established the “working group of financial services for the construction of Qinghai-Tibet railway” and set the special counter of “Qinghai-Tibet railway capital settlement” throughout its outlets to offer the railway construction units convenient settlement and transfer services. Since most of the Golmud-Lhasa is located in the remote high altitude areas, the CCB Qinghai branch raised the slogan that “CCB provides services wherever the Qinghai-Tibet railway is built” to meet the financial services of construction units. In areas where the bank has no presence it dispatched special customer managers and set up a mobile service group to provide on-site services.

To help the construction units solve their fund turnover difficulties, the Qinghai branch tried its best to simplify the examination procedures and raise approval efficiency and issued altogether over RMB90 million of working capital loans. Over the past 5 years, the CCB Qinghai branch processed more than RMB27 billion of the Qinghai-Tibet railway construction capital, remained dedicated to providing quality, efficient and convenient services for the railway in terms of capital management, credit support, agency salary payment, housing provident fund and individual services and honored its promise of “providing first-class and all-round financial services for the construction of Qinghai-Tibet railway”.

Serving the Qinghai-Tibet railway and building a better tomorrow
The construction of Lanzhou-Xining double track line and Xining-Golmud double track line of the Qinghai-Tibet railway is another major project of the western development strategy following the first and second phases of the railway.

After the second phase of the Qinghai-Tibet railway was put into operation, the Ministry of Railway decided to invest a total of RMB25.97 billion to build the Lanzhou-Xining double track line and Xining-Golmud double track line and launch the electronic upgrading project from May 2006 in order to fully tap the transport capacity of the Qinghai-Tibet railway. To compete for the creditor’s right of Lanzhou-Golmud line electronic upgrading project, CCB, with decades of rich experiences of serving the Qinghai-Tibet railway construction and the sound partnership with Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company, is engaged in another “war”. So far, the CCB headquarters has consulted with the Ministry of Railway and promised RMB16.88 billion of credit for the Lanzhou-Golmud electronic project. It will carry on the Qinghai-Tibet railway spirit of “challenging the limit and building the best railway” defined by President Hu Jintao and its purposes of serving the key national construction projects to provide all-round financial services for the project in terms of capital management, credit support and fund operation.

Over the past more than 5 decades, CCB has been born and prospered for construction. It always takes participating in and serving China’s economic construction as its responsibility and gives top priority to the interest of the country and the people. Where construction calls for there will be the footprint of CCB. From the “three-line” construction to the rejuvenation of the old industrial base in Northeast China and from the western development to the rise of central China, CCB has been making its own contributions to the key project constructions in the country’s history. In the process of serving the national economic construction and reform and opening-up, CCB is growing pace by pace with the entire nation. After the successful shareholding transformation and IPO in Hong Kong almost a year ago, CCB has grown remarkably in terms of capital strength, profitability, risk control and corporate governance and demonstrated its strong competitiveness and development potential to the investors and the public. Today, 330,000 CCB staffs are working diligently towards the strategic vision of “building the bank into a leading international commercial bank providing customers with the best services, creating the maximum value for the shareholders and offering employees the best career opportunities”.