Financial conglomerate CITIC Group yesterday announced the appointment of new chairman Kong Dan.

Kong follows former chairman Wang Jun, 65, who has retired after holding the position for 11 years.

Chang Zhenming, who just resigned from the presidency of China Construction Bank, has been named as CITIC Group vice-chairman and general manager.

The management reshuffle is a normal update, a CITIC group spokesman said yesterday.

The new leaders should further promote the group's business development, he said. He also highly praised the work of former chairman Wang, who co-founded the group in 1979 and was promoted to group chairman in 1995.

CITIC, based in Beijing, is now a major State-owned financial conglomerate in China, with a number of overseas subsidiaries.

Kong, 59, joined the group in 2000 from China Everbright (Group) Corp. He has since served as vice-chairman and general manager.

The spokesman described Kong as having "strong management abilities and rich financial expertise."

He also praised him for his diligence, practical skills and integrity.

Chang, 50, also has an impressive background in finance. Named as CITIC Group's deputy general manager in 1995, he has held top posts in several securities, banking and trust subsidiaries of the group, including CITIC Securities, CITIC Trust and Investment and Hong Kong-based CITIC Ka Wah Bank.

He was appointed president of China Construction Bank in mid-2004.

The bank, one of the "Big Four" State banks, was restructuring to prepare for an overseas public listing, which was realized in Hong Kong last October.

Chang contributed a lot to the bank's reform and listing, a bank spokesman said earlier this week, when Chang announced his resignation.

CITIC Group had total assets of 701.4 billion yuan (US$67.7 billion) by the end of 2004, group sources said, compared to just over 100 billion yuan (US$12.5 billion) a decade earlier.

(China Daily July 28, 2006)