Francisco González: “Asia offers excellent growth opportunities for BBVA”
20 September 2006
“Any global corporation requires a strong presence in Asia because it is the continent of the 21st century. At BBVA, we believe Asia offers excellent growth opportunities,” today affirmed Francisco González, BBVA Chairman, during the official inauguration of the Group’s Singapore branch, in the frame of the International Monetary Fund meetings. “BBVA is embarking upon an ambitious expansion program of its businesses in Asia,” he added. By year-end, BBVA will have tripled the number of persons assigned in Asia with respect to December 2004 to close to 150 persons throughout the entire region.
“At present,” said Francisco González, “we have full branches in Tokyo and Hong Kong, to which Singapore is now added, and we expect to convert the representative office in Shanghai into a branch in the coming months.”
Furthermore, “we have a representative office in Beijing and are opening representative offices in Taipei and Seoul.” Finally, the Chairman announced that “we are also planning on opening an office in Mumbai (India) and Sydney (Australia) in the coming months.”
Francisco González made these announcements during the cocktail reception to celebrate the official inauguration of the Group’s branch in Singapore, held today at the Grand Hyatt Hotel Singapore. Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, President & COO of BBVA, also attended the event.
As he explained, Singapore is a fundamental piece of the Group’s strategy in Asia, since apart from reinforcing the Group’s capacities in all wholesale businesses in the region, it will become the regional center for project finance business in Asia.
“Singapore offers BBVA the opportunity to forge ahead in our strengths in the wholesale businesses in Asia. Specifically, we are going to maximize our efforts in Singapore through the following:
- Corporate loans with the thousands of multinational companies present in Singapore
- Short and long-term trade finance of commodities and capital goods
- Trading and distribution of financial market products
- And notably, the branch in Singapore will become our regional center for project finance in Asia, a business in which we are ranked second globally in the finance of infrastructure, power and energy, oil and gas.”
According to Francisco González, opportunities also exist for working with both the public and private sector to develop better trade and information flows between Spain and Singapore and between Latin America and Asia, by exploiting BBVA’s unique network in Europe, the U.S.A. and Latin America.
BBVA and Asia, a profitable growth strategy
BBVA’s expansion program in the region, known as the Asia Plan, is framed within BBVA’s global growth strategy, pointed out Francisco González during the inauguration.
“Our strategy is quite consistently focused on profitable growth as a means of creating shareholder value,” he explained. “This implies organic, but also non-organic growth when we see opportunities which, in turn, create value for our shareholders and fit within our long-term strategy,” he affirmed.
“BBVA wants to become a truly global bank,” he said, “and that is why we’re growing in the U.S.A., where we’ve just purchased two banks in Texas, and we also want to grow in Asia.”
“Asia has and is going to continue to have a heavyweight position in global trade and finance and is the protagonist of most of the growth in GDP worldwide, which is why nowadays any global corporation requires a strong presence here,” pointed out Francisco González.
“Asia is considered to be the continent of the 21st century and we, at BBVA, believe it offers excellent opportunities for growth,” he added.
“The Asian countries are major players in world trade,” he affirmed, “and therefore maintain significant commercial flows with important regions of the world and, among others with Latin America. BBVA, leader in Europe and America with a sound position in the trade finance business globally, enjoys a unique competitive advantage in this environment,” explained Francisco González.
“We are extremely familiar with Spain, the rest of Europe, and Latin America, its countries and its corporations, but at the same time, are able to offer very competitive financing solutions to our Asian clients,” he added.
According to BBVA’s chairman, “we are specialists in the business of credit cards, consumer finance, money transfers and mortgages, we have extensive experience in financing major projects and international trade, as well as the capacity to develop and trade sophisticated financial instruments.” “We believe that this pool of strengths will be a key factor in our future growth and success in this part of the world,” he added.
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