The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has announced its intentions to invest up to R10bn ($0.69bn) in South Africa's power generation infrastructure, at the FOCAC Heads of Summit in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Standard Bank, acting as arranging and structuring adviser, will assist ICBC in raising this sum from the financial markets over the five-year period.

This follows the signing of a collaboration agreement between ICBC and Standard Bank in the presence of President Xi Jinping of China and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma.

It is anticipated that there will be significant development in the South African economy, particularly in the power and infrastructure sectors of the South African economy, over the next five years.

Standard Bank and ICBC want to participate in this development with a view to ensuring that the South
African economy goes from strength-to-strength.

Speaking on the sidelines of the FOCAC Summit, Standard Bank Group CEO Sim Tshabalala, announced that the ICBC-Standard Bank partnership will jointly support up to 100 new infrastructure and industrial projects across Africa, ranging from resources and transportation, to electricity and telecommunications, to manufacturing and industrial parks.

Standard Bank and ICBC have worked together on a wide range of initiatives, all with a strong focus on supporting infrastructure investment and industrial development in Africa, and on growing trade and investment flows between China and Africa.

For example, Standard Bank, ICBC and China Development Bank are co-financing the Kabompo hydro project in Zambia.

Another example include a $1bn syndicated loan facility to Angolan state oil company Sonangol organised by Standard Bank and ICBC, acting as joint lead arrangers, underwriters and book runners.

“Strategic cooperation between ICBC and Standard Bank has enabled us to arrange more than $7bn in loans to African countries and to complete over $14bn of transactions that have brought equity and debt capital from Chinese corporations and financial institutions to Africa,” said Tshabalala.

While much of our joint work so far has been in corporate and investment banking, ICBC and Standard Bank are increasingly exploring opportunities to expand cooperation into new areas of business.

"In retail banking, we are working together to introduce new solutions to facilitate personal remittances between South Africa and China. This will enable online person-to-person and business-to-business direct international payments and will be managed by dedicated specialist teams, improving convenience and reducing costs for our customers,” said Tshabalala.

Tshabalala said that ICBC had identified Africa as an important growth market.

“ICBC recognised that its own expansion into the continent would be best served by creating a strategic partnership with a large and well-established African financial services group. So the largest bank in the world teamed up with the largest bank in Africa in 2009, when ICBC bought a 20% stake in the Standard Bank Group, becoming our single largest shareholder,” he said.