China Investment Co. Ltd., the country's long-awaited state
forex investment company set up to make better use of its huge
foreign exchange reserve, will be inaugurated on September 28,
Wednesday's China Business News reports.
Lou Jiwei, current deputy secretary-general of the State
Council, will act as board chairman, while Gao Xiqing, now vice
chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund, will be
the general manager, the newspaper said, citing unidentified
sources.
Other senior managerial staff will include Zhang Hongli, a vice
finance minister, Wang Jianxi, a vice board chairman of the Central
Huijin Investment Corporation, Hu Huaibang, Commissioner of
Discipline Inspection with the China Banking Regulatory Commission,
Xie Ping, the general manager of the Central Huijin, and Yang
Qingwei, department head of fixed assets investment with the
National Development and Reform Commission.
The vice central bank governor Su Ning, who had participated in
the preparations for the establishment of the company, is not going
to hold a post in the company, according to the newspaper.
Previous rumors saying Hu Zuliu, the general manager of Goldman
Sachs Group (Asia) Ltd, would become the general manager of the
research department of the company were untrue, the paper reported,
citing sources close to Hu.
Analysts said China Investment Company would either invest in
the financial market, make direct outbound investment in energy and
resources or offer financial support to Chinese enterprises to
invest overseas.
They said the second strategy would be the most difficult to
implement, as it needed a great amount of expertise and experience,
so the other two strategies were more likely to be adopted.
At the end of last month, China's Ministry of Finance announced
it would use forex purchased with returns from a 600 billion-yuan
(US$67.79 billion) special treasury bond sale to finance the China
Investment Co. Ltd.
China's forex reserve had reached US$1.33 trillion by the end of
June.
(Xinhua News Agency September 20, 2007)
