Habib Bank Limited (HBL) held a reception for a team of Chinese bankers from Urumqi City Commercial Bank (UCCB), one of the premier banks in Xingjiang autonomous region headquartered in Urumqi.
The team had recently completed their training at the Management Development Institute (MDI) of HBL. The Chiese Consul General in Karachi Sun Chunye was the chief guest on this occasion.
The MDI of HBL, with its three fully equipped chapters in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad regularly conducts and outsource technical and personnel development courses for bankers enabling them to meet the challenges of the ever-changing business and customer requirements.
Courses, workshops, skill development clinics ad seminars in the disciplines of Service & Attitude, Market Research & Selling, Management & Communication, Credit & Finance, IT & e-banking, Treasury & Trade Finance, Global/Domestic Banking Operations and other diverse subjects are conducted by qualified and certified faculty and industry experts.
Speaking at the occasion, Zakir Mehmood, President, HBL, reiterated the bank's commitment to professional excellence. He said "we have been training bankers, both local and foreign for a long time which speaks highly of the bank's ability to hold training programmes for its own officials and also for overseas bankers. Concurrently it reflects on the high level of professionalism found in the Pakistan banking industry.
HBL, which also established its representative office in Beijing in September 2005, is the first Pakistani bank to participate directly in the Chinese banking sector. It will use its trade finance expertise to facilitate the growth of trade between Pakistan and China. The bank will also provide financial advisory and project finance services to Pakistani and Chinese companies, seeking to invest in each other's markets.
Zakir Mehood said that this training programme was started following the singing of a MoU between HBL and UCCB in February 2005 during the visit of President General Pervez Musharraf to China.
The group leader of Chinese bankers, Madam Zhan Xin said on this occasion that they are the first group, who have got training in Pakistan after signing of the MoU between Pakistani and Chinese bank last year. She said very close relations between Pakistan and China would strengthen it further.