Standard Bank Group, Africa’s biggest bank by assets, expects its profit in China to double next year, benefiting from the growing economic ties between Africa and the world’s third biggest economy.
”We conservatively think we’ll make $50-million this year, we’re on track to do that, and next year we’ll make $100-million,” said Craig Bond, Standard Bank’s China chief executive.
The bank, in which Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) holds a 20% stake, is working with ICBC on 60 deals on the African continent, covering the mining, oil and gas and mineral sectors.
One in five of those deals is expected to close in the next 12 months, Bond told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the north-eastern Chinese port city of Dalian.
Standard Bank, which serves purely as a consulting firm in China, has seen a growing number of Chinese firms going to Africa since early this year.
”I think, definitely, the interest from China has improved and there is a very real desire to go look at real assets and do real deals in Africa,” Bond said. — Reuters