HONG KONG (02/09/2000) - ChinaWeb Ltd., which operates English- and Chinese-language financial Web sites in Mainland China, this week strengthened its relationship with financial services giant China International Trust and Investment Corp. (CITIC).
CITIC, which had announced an exclusive partnership with ChinaWeb last October, took a 10 percent stake in the online company, the companies said in a statement.
The companies plan to formally launch in late February an online trading service called Trading Online Platform for Securities. CITIC's trading unit, CITIC Securities Co. Ltd., has more than 750,000 account holders, according to the statement.
Other plans include online banking, foreign exchange and back-end transaction and clearing services for online merchants, according to ChinaWeb.
ChinaWeb's parent company is the Stock Exchange Executive Council of China (SEEC), which has played a key role in developing China's capital markets and helping to create electronic trading systems such as the Securities Trading and Automated Quotation System, according to ChinaWeb. Other investors in ChinaWeb include Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper, U.S. high-tech investment firm Talisman Capital and the China Foreign Exchange Consulting Company.
ChinaWeb operates the bilingual chinaweb.com site and the Chinese-language homeway.com.cn site.
ChinaWeb is in Beijing and can be reached online at http://www.chinaweb.com.
CITIC is also in Beijing and is online at http://www.citic.com.