China Construction Bank Corporation (CCB), the world's second largest bank by market value, has opened its first barnch in the US in New York.

The CCB said, the banks New York Branch will plans to undeertake wholesale banking, including lending, acceptance of wholesale deposits, trade finance, US dollar clearing and treasury.

CCB's chairman Guo Shuqing said that the United States is one of China's most important trade and economic partners, and China is currently the United States' second largest trading partner and the establishment of CCB's branch in New York, the world's largest financial center, will significantly improve CCB's ability to provide worldwide services to its customers.

"The new branch will also enable CCB to better facilitate Chinese-American economic and trade investment and financial cooperation and will help CCB to make significant progress towards its vision of becoming a truly global bank," said said CCB's Chairman Guo Shuqing

Until now, five Chinese banks have opened branches in the US. The other four are Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and China Merchants Bank.

CCB has overseas branches in Hong Kong, Singapore, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Tokyo and Seoul.

As the initial operating platform in the United States, the branch will use CCB's extensive financial resources, global network and infrastructure to provide premium financial services to its clients, including multinational corporations and financial institutions.

CCB is one of the largest commercial banks in China, ranked second in terms of market capitalisation among all listed banks in the world, and is among global industry leaders in terms of profitability.

It also owns owns the largest number of ATMs in the world and ranks first among banks in China in terms of medium- and long-term capital construction loans and personal residential mortgage loans.

CCB's total assets were approximately $1.3 trillion (RMB 8674.633 billion), with an NPL ratio of 1.9 per cent and a provision coverage ratio of 141.8 per cent, at the end of the first quarter of 2009. Its  net profit for the first quarter of 2009 was $3.84 billion (RMB26.276 billion).

The bank also has two fully owned subsidiaries in Hong Kong – China Construction Bank (Asia) Corporation Limited (''CCB Asia'') and CCB International (Holdings) Limited (''CCB International'') which have undergone further capital expansion in 2008 and have representative offices in London and Sydney.

CCB is preparing to set the Ho Chi Minh City Branch in Vietnam and the upgrading its Sydney Representative Office to a branch.

In 2005, Bank of America  acquired a 9-per cent stake in China Construction Bank for $3 billion and formed a strategic alliance on April 1, 2006 to allow its customers to have free access to both companies' extensive ATM networks.