Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has recently signed with Central Bank of Nigeria and Dangote Group respectively Mandate Letter on China Cooperation and RMB Transactions and Production Capacity Cooperation Agreement, becoming China’s first commercial bank signing agreements with Central Bank of Nigeria and Dangote Group.

The Central Bank of Nigeria is one of the first foreign central banks investing foreign reserves in the RMB assets.  According to the agreement, the Central Bank of Nigeria will entrust ICBC to provide financial services to its relevant Chinese business and RMB transaction business.  Under the framework of Production Cooperation Agreement signed with Dangote Group, Dangote Group will entrust ICBC and SINOSURE to provide matching financial service related to production capacity cooperation.

In recent years, ICBC has systematically developed new emerging markets in Africa by implementing country-specific development strategy. Its has continued to support cooperation between China and Africa on energy import, high-end equipment export, quality production capacity transfer and large-scale engineering contracting. It has also proactively supported Africa’s “Road, Railway and Aviation Networks and Industrialization”, agricultural development and infrastructure construction involving industries such as power, oil and gas, railway, telecommunication and other infrastructure construction. By late March of 2016, ICBC has cumulative loan amount of approximate USD 15.6 billion in 58 Africa-China cooperation projects which covers almost 20 African countries. Currently ICBC has 135 reserved key Africa-China cooperation projects with an overall investment of almost USD 115.4 billion in around 30 countries.