According to the news of the People's Daily of Jun 15 in Beijing the signing ceremony of the "syndicated loan of inter-banking framework cooperation agreement for south-north water diversion main-body project" was held on Tuesday in Beijing. According to the agreement the 9 domestic banking organizations with the National Development Bank taking the lead are going to provide the south-north water diversion main-body project with a syndicated loan of RMB 48.8 billion yuan (not including RMB 7.0 billion for pollution treatment).

Included in them are RMB 20.0 billion yuan of credit loans for the support of opening the account. The south-north water diversion project is a project of great importance, a trans-century project. The dead gross investment for the first-phase project along the east and middle lines comes to an amount of RMB 124.0 billion yuan. As the project requires a very great amount of investment it needs not only to be financed by the funds for south-north water diversion project but also to be supported with a long-term, stable and sufficient syndicated loan.

At the same time the complexity, prolongation and systematization of the project has raised a higher and more all-round requirement for banking services. In view of the special requirement for financial support and under the great support of the State Research & Development Commission, Ministry of Water Resources and the Construction Office of the South-North Water Diversion Project the four state-solely-owned commercial banks including China Construction Bank and other three headed by the National Development Bank together with the four shareholding commercial banks with Minsheng Bank at the head joined hands for setting up the syndicated consortium to provide funds for the south-north water diversion project. Including all major banks and featuring sufficient and powerful capital for fund-supply, overall banking measures and multiplied points of network service the consortium is quite capable for providing the huge water diversion project as such with sufficient capital and an all-round service.

Article carried on People's Daily of Jun 16 and translated by People's Daily Online