More Overseas-Funded Banks In Shanghai's Pudong New Area

SHANGHAI, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Three foreign banks - France's Exterior Trade Bank, Spain's International Bank, and Germany's Dresden Bank - recently established branches in the Pudong New Area, an emerging financial and trade zone in Shanghai.

This brings the number of overseas-funded banks in Pudong to 37. The three banks have combined assets of 12.9 billion US dollars.

The overseas-funded banks are mainly involved in foreign currency business and have 1.63 billion US dollars in deposits and 9.71 billion US dollars in loans.

In recent years, they have been more active in the yuan business, and more than a dozen have been approvd for the renminbi business.

Pudong has maintained rapid economic growth since it was set up in 1990 and, despite the worsening effects of the Asian financial crisis, it had a GDP of 71 billion yuan in 1998, an increase of 16. 8 percent from the previous year.