JBIC Signs Letter of Intent for Operational Cooperation with Maybank Group
Boosting Local Supporting Industries in ASEAN in Collaboration with the Maybank Group

• Region: Asia
• Manufacturing and Services
• Others

1. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC; President & CEO: Hiroshi Watanabe)^*1 signed on May 31 a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank), a commercial bank in Malaysia, and its group banks: PT Bank Internasional Indonesia Tbk (in Indonesia) and Maybank Philippines, Inc. (in the Philippines). The objectives of this LOI are to secure effective financing in the ASEAN region with an untied loan, for which JBIC signed a loan agreement with Maybank on March 29^*2, as well as ensure close coordination with these Maybank group banks.
    
2. Maybank is Malaysia's largest bank by total assets and has, in addition to its extensive Malaysian branch network, branch offices in Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Brunei and group banks in Indonesia and the Philippines. The untied loan aims to provide financing for Japanese affiliates operating in the ASEAN region and their local supporting industries by collaborating with the Maybank group, which has a broad network in the region. This LOI establishes the promotion of active support for those affiliates and industries, and the close exchange of information for this purpose. Following the signing of the loan in March, candidate projects have been already under consideration among Maybank group banks in individual countries. JBIC intends to promote the expeditious use of the untied loan by collaborating with the Maybank group, based on the mutual consensus this LOI was built upon, to provide financial support for business operations of Japanese affiliates and their supporting industries in the ASEAN region.
    
3. ASEAN member countries are making steady progress toward reducing their mutual tariffs. Japan has also been strengthening its economic ties with the ASEAN region by signing both bilateral Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with individual ASEAN countries and the Japan-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. Setting up institutional arrangements for collaboration with the Maybank group based on this LOI will contribute to strengthening the international competitiveness of Japanese affiliates, which view Asian growth as a business opportunity, and to operating in the ASEAN region, which is moving more toward an integrated economic zone.
    
4. JBIC is committed to making effective efforts to support overseas business activities of Japanese industries by drawing on its wide range of financial instruments and programs.

Note

1. *1 JBIC is the international wing of the Japan Finance Corporation (JFC; Governor: Shosaku Yasui).
2. *2 See Press Release on March 30, 2010.
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