Michael Cohrs, president of Deutsche Bank 's financing department said recently that the bank has great interests in China's semiconductor market, it hopes to branch out into China's semiconductor sector and would like to help China's local companies make better use of the global capital market.
Although the global semiconductor market has been sluggish, the bank is confident in the sector's future and would like to invest in the Asia-Pacific market, particularly in China, Cohrs said.
Cohrs gave the speech at a symposium on the semiconductor industry of the Asia-Pacific region which was held in east China's Shanghai Municipality and hosted by the Deutsche Bank.
After visiting Zhangjiang New High-Tech Park in Shanghai, Cohrs said, "China has entered its semiconductor era and will become one of the world's most important manufacturing and consumption countries" in the sector.
"Taking up 50 percent of the world's market share, China is a market of second importance in Asia only after Japan," he said.
Explaining the bank's interests in the Chinese market, Cohrs said that his bank has already filed an application to China's government for the licenses to issue stock and conduct foreign exchange business.
In addition, the bank has employed a senior officer who is quite familiar with China to explore the country's market.
In an effort to shift from a commercial bank to an investment bank, Deutsche Bank will give more attention to the investment business in China, helping Chinese enterprises raise funds in overseas markets, providing more financial advice and branching out in the country's new high-tech industry, which of course includes the semiconductor business, he said.
According to Cohrs, semiconductor business in the Asia-Pacific region began to move into the interior of China since the beginning of last year.
A number of Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Wuxi, Chengdu and Xi'an have striven to either build up domestic chip-designing enterprises and production lines or attract such businesses overseas.
Deutsche Bank's business in China dates back to 1872 when its Shanghai subsidiary bank was set up.
So far, the bank has established wide-ranging cooperation with Chinese banks including China Construction Bank, China Communication Bank and the Bank of China.
Deutsche Bank has participated in the country's issue of government bonds and enterprise shares, including that of China Mobile (Hong Kong), China Unite Telecom, China National Petroleum Corp. and the Capital International Airport of Beijing.
Being the sole financial advisor of China National Petroleum, Deutsche Bank is helping manage the company's gas transmission program which involves an investment of more than US$14 billion.
(People's Daily November 7, 2001)
