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Bank president: Russia’s Sberbank has no investment plans in China

MOSCOW, January 24, /ITAR-TASS/. Sberbank, one of Russia’s biggest banks, is not planning to open a bank in China, Sberbank President German Gref said in an interview with the Vesti24 television channel.

“We run an office in China but we don’t have plans to make investments in China,” he said. “Regrettably, the Chinese market is very closed. I see no perspectives of gaining a strong foothold on the Chinese market under the current regulation rules.”

According to Gref, China’s market is not interesting for financial companies. “Under the current regulation and the protectionist policy in China, we do not consider that country interesting for us. We have no investment plans in China in the next five years,” he said, adding that India’s market looked more interesting, although the bank would focus on Eastern European countries. “Last year, our European bank - Sberbank Europe - earned its first profit and this year it would yield good returns,” he noted.

Earlier, the Bloomberg agency cited Sberbank’s deputy chairman Sergei Gorkov as saying that the bank planned to work out a strategy of entering the Chinese marker in 2014.