Earlier, ICBC Beijing Zhongguancun Sub-branch concluded a credit loan cooperation agreement with Shangdi Chamber of Industry and Commerce under the Federation of Haidian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. According to the agreement, ICBC provides loans (credit loans or loans pledged under intellectual property right) to small-and-medium high-tech firms in Shangdi, up to RMB 5 million and a tenure of 1 year longest. The loans are aimed at addressing the funding gap of these high-tech firms in batch and reducing their borrowing costs. The conclusion of the agreement was a response to the "Small/Micro Enterprises Financial Services Promotion Month" organized by the Beijing Banking Regulatory Commission. It marked an important measure of ICBC to lend full support to the high-tech firms in Zhongguancun Science Park and private sector in Beijing, also demonstrated ICBC's social responsibility to support the growth of small-and-medium high-tech enterprises by providing a full spectrum of financial services to them.

Shangdi is one of core areas of Zhongguancun Science Park clustered with nearly 8,000 registered companies, of which a majority are high-tech firms. They have strong innovation capability, huge potential and high growth rate, yet in general, they have difficulty to obtain bank loans due to their "light assets, lack of effective collateral or guaranteed". In view of this, ICBC joined Shangdi Sub-District Office, Shangdi Chamber of Commerce and Industry to look for innovative means of financing under the great support from concerned government departments. Credit loan represents a fruitful attempt to drive the delivery of financial services to high-tech firms for their growth.

As a long-term strategy ICBC Beijing Branch has been focused on financial services to small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) to support their growth, especially the small-and-medium high-tech firms. Various measures have been adopted to set up systems and mechanisms, launch innovative products and assign dedicated staff to serve the customers. The result was encouraging. Since 2008, ICBC has set up 10 small business financial centers in the Zhongguancun's "One Zone, Ten Parks" packed with high-tech firms. The Zhongguancun Small Business Financial Center was the earliest and fastest growing center in terms of number of customers and loan size. The growth of the Center shows the dedicated services of ICBC to small business owners. In product innovation, in recent years, ICBC has launched a range of innovative products such as government procurement loan without the guarantee of collateral, invoice financing, supply chain finance, as well as fast and convenient online loans. This year, ICBC is going to start a pilot in extending credit to high-tech firms such as credit loan, loan pledged under intellectual property right, or loan pledged under equity. Besides, ICBC also provides a full spectrum of financial products to high-tech firms covering settlement, financing, investment banking, cash management, wealth management and electronic banking. ICBC being a large bank fulfills its social responsibility to lend full support to their growth. As of end of 2011, ICBC Beijing Branch's total outstanding loans to micro and small enterprises ("MSEs") reached nearly RMB 15 billion. Number of customers was nearly 1,500. MSE loans rose about RMB 6 billion from the beginning of the year, or over 60%. While meeting Banking Regulatory Commission's requirement of "growth of MSE loans cannot be lower than average growth rate of all loans, loan increase cannot be less than the same period last year", ICBC has built a good reputation of being a large bank to serve MSEs.

The conclusion of the agreement demonstrated a very good attempt of ICBC to support small-and-medium high-tech firms. The agreement represents a new approach for three parties (government, company, and bank) to address the difficulty of SMEs to obtain bank loans. Moreover, this is also an important measure of ICBC Beijing Branch to provide more loans and innovative products and services to small-and-medium high-tech firms, as required by the Central Government, Beijing Municipal Party Committee and Beijing Municipal Government. It signifies one step forward of ICBC's strategy to provide financial services to high-tech enterprises.