（编者：张建国行长日前接受英国《欧洲货币》杂志专访，该杂志2010年9月号世行年会会刊刊登了专访文章。正文后附中译文。）

 

Zhang Jianguo, president of China Construction Bank, one of China’s big four commercial banks, talks to Euromoney about his company’s development and unique characteristics.

How did China Construction Bank grow from being the vehicle funding China’s construction projects in the 1950s and 1960s to the second largest bank in mainland China, as well as the second largest in the world by market capitalization?

China Construction Bank was established in 1954. At the very beginning it was a department of the Ministry of Finance. During that time the bank was responsible for the supervision of funding construction investment of the nation. Then the central government decided to reform the banking sector and in the 1990s all specialized banks developed into commercial banks.

In 2004 we started the restructuring reform and attracted foreign investment, and now China Construction Bank has become the second largest commercial bank in China with Bank of America as our second largest shareholder and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings the third. In 2005 we went public in Hong Kong, which means we were the first bank to go public among the ‘big four’ in China, and we landed in Shanghai’s A share market in 2007.

The past few years we have maintained very good results from our operations and this spring the total assets of the bank exceeded RMB10 trillion. We have made great progress in our service to customers, risk management capability and overall competitiveness. The quality of our assets is also good, and at the end of this June the non-performing loan ratio was just 1.22%.

In the past, the several big banks in China focused on different business areas. China Construction Bank mainly operated in the domestic market with overseas business accounting for a small proportion of our overall business. At that time Bank of China played the role of the bank that served foreign trade and the international market. But in 1990s the five big banks namely Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications, were allowed to go abroad when the overseas business of our bank began to develop rapidly. Now we have branches in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Ho Chi Minh City, New York, Johannesburg and Singapore. We have a subsidiary in London, and an investment arm and a retail arm in Hong Kong. We have also obtained approval to upgrade our Sydney rep office to a branch from the Australian banking regulators. We are also planning to set up a rep office in Moscow by the end of this year.

Why was the decision made to expand abroad, and how have you approached your expansion efforts?

Four years ago the senior management decided our overseas development strategy. The reason is simple: China’s economy is highly related to the world and many of our clients, both individual clients and corporate clients, are going abroad so we needed to expand our global presence and enlarge our network overseas to provide better service to our customers. Meanwhile, our overseas development enables us to learn advanced management concepts and experience from foreign banks

We are more of a domestic bank with overseas business accounting for less than 3% of the overall business. Therefore, we intend to grow organically in the global market while also welcoming acquisitions if appropriate.

As one of the big four in China, what are the unique competitive strengths of China Construction Bank?

China Construction Bank was once in charge of the appropriation for treasury investment and served as a specialized bank responsible for infrastructure construction credit. Therefore, we have strong experience and overall ability to serve big customers and projects. For example, I was told that we can have three or four task forces serving nuclear power plant projects independently. None of the other big banks can accomplish this task.

Also, China Construction Bank offers special project pricing consultancy; we are the only bank among Chinese commercial banks to offer this service. We were the pioneer in the reform of the Chinese banking system. In the 1990s, when the central government decided that the specialized banks needed to be converted to commercial banks, we were among the first. And in 2003, when the central government decided to reform the big four banks, China Construction Bank got the first opportunity. Up until now China Construction Bank is taking a leading role in all banking changes in China.

At the same time we cannot only serve the big customers or projects. Years ago, we focused on enlarging the number of customers by expanding our retail banking business and SME financial service, and improving services to the ‘three rurals’ - namely agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and institutions such as hospitals and schools. We now have more than 260 million personal accounts.

Chinese banks were less hard-hit by the recent financial crisis than their Western counterparts, and seem to have recovered quicker. Why do you think this was?

There are a lot of reasons. First, the demand from China’s domestic market is huge. Chinese banks mainly serve domestic economy which recovers very quickly. Second, Chinese banks are little involved in financial derivative products. Third, great achievements have been made in the financial reform, which has laid a solid foundation for recovery. Fourth, the Chinese banking industry has not been completely opened up to the outside world. For example, the capital account is not fully opened yet.

Western banks were over-innovated, especially regarding derivatives products, which is why they were so badly impacted by the crisis. The crisis gives us a good opportunity to learn how to balance financial innovation and risk management.

China Construction Bank was not as hard-hit as other financial institutions, like the big European banks, but we were affected, especially some of our clients that deal with import and export, predominantly SMEs in southern China – they got a lot of negative impact which led to certain amount of non-performing loans.

But overall we are in a good position among our peers. We realized the importance of early warning, especially when it comes to dealing with clients in import/export and those just relying on their low-price advantage.

We have to admit that though the impact of the crisis was minor it made it clear to us that our overseas assets were very limited and that we didn’t have a very adequate level of innovation. In China, most of the financial market products introduced over the years came from Western banks. I have worked in the industry for 28 years, at different banks in China, and although I say this in connection to China Construction Bank，I think that all of the Chinese commercial banks have the same problem with innovation. China is becoming more interdependent with other countries. Our clients are interacting more and more overseas so if China Construction Bank didn’t have a presence in these foreign countries we would run the risk of losing a lot of opportunities and clients. Our clients also have more and more sophisticated financial service needs; not just limited to loans and deposits. So we have worked out a comprehensive overseas development plan.

How did the financial crisis alter your procedures and approaches to risk management and future development?

We have implemented risk management procedures. After we went through the internal risk procedure we have continued to offer support to our clients that were negatively impacted by the crisis and have some temporary issues.

Another impact was reflected in our internal operations, especially regarding our overseas business. Some foreign securities we have bought were downgraded and our loans granted to overseas clients were too concentrated in a few sectors. After the crisis we strengthened our management for those financial market businesses and overseas institutions and we improved our management in regard to national evaluation and also the issuer credit analysis and internal operational authorities.

In terms of IT development we have learnt good lessons and best practices from global advanced banks, like which kind of products should be sent to head office for approval, and we have further developed these kinds of policies.

We have built a very good risk management IT system by adopting many tools and products from the international market, other companies and our strategic partners and in-house development of tools and products. We are also trying to improve the managements systems, not just the IT systems. We have named 38 risk officers in every tier-1 branch and established a sound risk management system.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities and concerns for the Chinese banking sector in the near future?

To cope with the changing market and environment, the central government and regulators change the policy from time to time. Therefore it is very important for the senior management in commercial banks to be able to predict and judge the environment and take advantage of opportunities. We think there will be a lot of good opportunities with infrastructure in the north-eastern and western provinces of China and the structural adjustment and industrial upgrading in east coastal region.

We have taken a lot of efforts to foresee changes in the system, analyze the market and analyze the impact of the policies set out by the central government and regulators. Our efforts over the past few years have been very successful.

The Chinese government implemented a stimulus plan in November 2008. According to our own situation, we followed the plan and extended loans to target customers but, starting from March last year, while other banks were going through the stimulus-led lending spree we had already realized the risks and issued guidelines to restrict new loans to certain industries. For instance, loan growth in property development sector each year is restricted to RMB30 billion.

Last year the whole banking industry in China experienced a large growth in loans and that has raised a lot of concern and worries. In January this year we launched a number of risk management measures that can properly examine the loans extended last year and the year before last. We are paying great attention to loans with collaterals or guarantees. What we are trying to do is to evaluate the quality of those collateral guarantees.

Our ratio of non-performing loans is going down. By the end of June the ratio was 1.22%. It is not only the ratio, but also the amount, which has been reduced by RMB7 billion compared with the beginning of this year. So we are confident that we can maintain very good asset quality.

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译：中国建设银行：中国银行业改革发展的先行者

中国四大商业银行之一——中国建设银行行长张建国，就公司发展及建行之独特性与《欧洲货币》杂志进行了交流。

中国建设银行在上世纪50年代和60年代是如何从经办中国基本建设投资的拨款的机构成长为中国大陆第二大银行，并且是全球市值第二大银行？

中国建设银行成立于1954年，最初隶属于财政部。在那期间，建行主要是经办国家基本建设投资的拨款监督等工作。之后，中央政府决定对银行业进行改革，并在上世纪九十年代将所有专业银行转变成为商业银行。

2004年，我们开始股份制改造并引进外国战略投资者。现在，建行成为中国第二大国有控股商业银行，美国银行及新加坡淡马锡控股公司分别是建行第二大股东及第三大股东。2005年我们于香港挂牌上市，成为中国四大行中第一家上市的银行，2007年我们回归上海A股市场。

过去的几年里，我们保持着优秀的经营业绩，总资产跃至十万亿元人民币以上。服务水平、风险管理能力和综合竞争力都有了明显提升，资产质量亦保持良好，截至今年6月30日，我们的不良贷款率仅为1.22%。

过去，中国几家大型银行的业务经营重点有所区别。中国建设银行的业务大多在国内，海外业务较少。当时，中国银行在外贸服务及国际市场中扮演重要角色。但是在上世纪九十年代，工、农、中、建、交五大银行都获得了走向国际市场的许可，从那时起，建行海外业务发展开始加快。现在建行在东京、首尔、香港、法兰克福、胡志明市、纽约、约翰内斯堡以及新加坡均设有分行，在伦敦设有子银行，在香港拥有投资银行及零售业务公司。胡志明市分行于今年年初正式开业，悉尼代表处升级为分行的申请也已获得澳大利亚银行监管部门的批准，我们还计划于今年年内在莫斯科设立代表处。

为什么建行决定海外扩张？建行是如何进行海外扩张的？

四年前，建行制定了海外发展战略。理由很简单：中国经济与世界联系非常密切，我们许多客户，包括个人客户和公司客户正走向海外，所以我们需要拓展全球业务并扩大海外网络，为客户提供更好的服务。同时，发展海外业务也使我们有机会借鉴国外银行的先进管理理念和经验。

目前我们的业务重心还在国内业务，海外业务占比不到3％。所以，我们有意在国际市场进行自主的成长发展，同时也会把握时机进行适当的收购。

作为中国四大行之一，中国建设银行的独特竞争优势是什么？

由于中国建设银行历史上曾负责国家财政投资拨款工作，经历过从事基本建设信贷的国家专业银行发展阶段，我们在基本建设金融服务领域有着丰富经验和竞争优势。例如，有人告诉我，我们建行的三四个工作团队就能独立地服务一个核电厂项目。其它大型银行都无法做到这些。

此外，中国建设银行提供项目造价咨询的特别业务，这是中国的商业银行中独一无二的。建行是中国银行业改革的先行者。上世纪九十年代，中央政府决定将专业银行转为商业银行之时，建行是第一批。2003年，当中央决定改革四大银行时，建行又获得了优先机会。直到现在，中国建设银行在中国银行业变革中一直扮演着领先的角色。

当然，我们不仅为大客户或大项目继续提供优质服务。几年前，我们开始拓展零售银行业务及中小企业金融服务，以扩大客户数目，我们现在有超过2.6亿个人账户。我们也在不断改善对“三农”（ 即农业，农村和农民）的服务，同时也支持医院和学校等机构的发展。

与西方同业相比，中资银行受到近期金融危机的负面影响较小，而且恢复也似乎较快。您认为是什么原因？

原因有很多，比如，一是中国国内需求市场大，银行主要服务国内经济，而中国经济回升较快；二是中国的银行从事金融衍生产品的很少；三是近年来金融改革取得很大成就，有基础；四是中国金融业还没有完全开放，资本项下就没全开放等等。

西方银行过度创新，尤其在衍生产品方面，这就是为何危机给他们带来严重影响的原因。这场危机为我们提供了学习如何平衡金融创新和风险防范的好机会。

与其它金融机构如欧洲大型银行相比，建行受到的冲击较小，但我们也受到了影响。一些从事进出口贸易的客户，尤其是中国南方的中小型企业，受到很大的负面影响，并产生一些不良贷款。

但总体来说，我们在同业中处于一个良好的地位。我们认识到了预警的重要性，尤其应对从事进出口及其它依靠低价优势的客户。

不得不承认，虽然危机对我们影响不大，但是我们从中看到了我们的海外资产非常有限，而且创新水平不足。多年来，大部分在中国金融市场推出的产品均源自西方银行。我在这个行业已有二十八年的从业经验，并曾在不同的中资银行工作。虽然我刚才提到的问题是从建行的立场出发，但是我认为所有中国商业银行都存在创新的问题。中国与其它国家相互依赖性不断增强。我们的客户与海外的互动越来越多，如果建行在这些海外国家没有机构，我们将会面临失去很多机会及客户的风险。同时，我们客户的金融服务需求也变得更多更复杂，不再仅限于贷款及存款。因此，我们制定了一个全面的海外发展计划。

此次金融危机如何改变建行在风险管理和未来发展方面的程序及方式？

我们已经执行了风险管理的程序。在经过内部风险程序检查后，我们继续支持了一些受危机影响而暂时有困难的客户。

危机的另一个影响反映在我们的内部运营上，尤其是海外业务方面。我们购买的一些外国债券评级受到了影响，而且我们向国外客户提供的贷款也过度集中在某些行业。危机发生后，我们加强了金融市场业务和海外机构的管理，并改进了我们在国家风险评估、发行人信用分析以及内部运营授权的管理。

在信息科技发展方面，我们从全球先进银行汲取了教训，并学习了他们成功做法，例如什么类型的产品应必须得到总行的批准，我们已完善了相关政策。

我们通过采用很多国际市场、其它公司、战略合作伙伴和工具及产品的内部研发，建立了优良的风险管理信息系统。不仅是信息技术系统，我们还努力改善管理系统。我们已在一级分行委任风险总监，共38人，以建立健全风险管理制度。

在不久的将来，您认为中国银行业最大的机会及最值得关注的方面是什么？

为了适应不断变化的市场及环境，中央政府及监管机构不时制定有针对性的政策。因此，商业银行的高管层的预测能力、环境判断能力和把握机遇的能力是非常重要的。我们认为，在中国东北部及西部省份的基础建设、东部沿海地区的结构性调整及产业升级方面会有很多好机会。

我们已进行了一系列的工作来预测经济形势的变化、分析市场和中央政府及监管机构所制定政策对银行产生的影响。在过去几年里，我们一直很成功。

2008年11月，中国政府实施了经济刺激计划。我们按计划并根据自身实际情况向目标客户发放贷款。但是，自去年三月，当其它银行仍根据经济刺激计划放贷时，我们已察觉相关的风险，并制定政策，限制向某些行业发放新贷款。例如，在房地产开发信贷方面，每年新增贷款不超过300亿人民币。

去年，整个中国银行业的贷款大幅增长，引起了不少关注及忧虑。今年一月，我们推出了一系列风险管理措施，这些措施帮助我们有效地审查和评估了去年及前年发放的贷款。我们也十分重视抵押或担保类贷款，正试图推出评估抵押担保的质量的相关措施。

我们的不良贷款率在不断下降。截至6月底，我们的不良贷款比率为1.22％。不仅是不良贷款率，不良贷款金额与今年年初相比已减少了70亿人民币。因此，我们有信心和能力保持非常良好的资产质量。