Why Bangladesh Wants a Chinese Bank Branch in Dhaka to Back Its $19 Billion Trade Corridor

Bangladesh does not have a single Chinese bank operating on its soil, and Invest Bangladesh wants that to change. At a gathering of eleven major Chinese financial institutions inside China Exim Bank's own headquarters in Beijing on October 20, Invest Bangladesh chairman Ashik Chowdhury made the pitch directly: open local branches here, because a $19 billion trading relationship still runs almost entirely through third-country banking channels.

• Bangladesh-China trade hit $19 billion in FY2025, but no Chinese bank has a licensed branch inside Bangladesh.
• Eleven Chinese financial institutions, including ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of China, attended the October 20 "Bangladesh Day" event in Beijing.
• China Exim Bank says it already has close to 40 projects running in Bangladesh, spanning infrastructure, energy, and manufacturing.
• Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar already host operating Chinese bank branches; Bangladesh is the odd one out in the region.

The pitch made in Beijing

"The next frontier of Bangladesh-China cooperation is financial connectivity," Chowdhury told the room, framing the request as the natural next step after years of Chinese-financed infrastructure projects. His argument was straightforward: trade volume of this size, built mostly on imports of machinery, electronics, and industrial raw materials from China, is currently settled through banks in Hong Kong, Singapore, or correspondent arrangements that add time and cost to every transaction. "A stronger presence of Chinese financial institutions could serve both sides," he said, pointing exporters and factory owners toward direct trade finance, working capital lines, and long-term investment support that a locally licensed Chinese bank could offer without routing through a third jurisdiction.

Wang Kang, Vice President of China Exim Bank, responded by sizing up the bank's existing footprint rather than committing to a branch opening. "We currently have nearly 40 projects in Bangladesh," he said, covering infrastructure, energy, agriculture, processing, and manufacturing, and added that the bank intends to keep "ensuring that finance continues to support the development of Bangladesh's real economy." He also singled out textiles and healthcare as sectors where Exim Bank would encourage more Chinese firms to invest directly, rather than lend from abroad.

Why there is no Chinese bank branch yet

The request is not new. Bangladesh's own commerce ministry raised a nearly identical ask with Chinese officials back in February 2024, when State Minister of Commerce Ahsanul Islam told an Economic Reporters Forum event in Dhaka that the government had made the yuan an official settlement currency for trade with China the previous month, and that a Chinese bank operating locally would let that policy actually function in practice. At the time, Islam put the bilateral trade deficit with China at roughly $22 billion and said more Chinese direct investment, not just financing, was the way to narrow it.

Two and a half years later, the yuan settlement option exists on paper but a dedicated clearing bank still does not, which is part of why the trade corridor Chowdhury described in Beijing still runs through intermediaries. Bangladeshi commercial banks have tried to fill part of the gap themselves. Dhaka-based lenders including EBL and NCC Bank have opened dedicated "China desks" to handle letters of credit and trade documentation for importers dealing with Chinese suppliers, but a desk inside a Bangladeshi bank is not the same as a Chinese bank holding its own license and balance sheet inside Bangladesh.

A parallel push on the energy side

The Beijing event did not happen in isolation. Five days earlier, on October 15, a China Exim Bank delegation led by President Wang Chunying met Bangladesh's Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood at the Secretariat in Dhaka to discuss financing for the Payra Thermal Power Plant expansion and two grid-strengthening projects, the Power Grid Network Strengthening Project and the Expansion and Strengthening of Power Network under DPDC Area, both run on a government-to-government basis. Mahmood, who called stable power and energy "the cornerstone of national development," pressed the bank to fast-track funding approvals for both the Payra expansion and the modernization of DPDC's transmission lines and control systems.

Wang Chunying's side used the meeting to praise recent cuts to import duties and tariffs on green energy equipment made by the National Board of Revenue, and said China Exim Bank was interested in financing and providing technical expertise for ground-mounted solar, floating solar, wind, and waste-to-energy projects under Bangladesh's Renewable Energy Policy 2026. Taken together with the Beijing banking pitch five days later, the two meetings point to the same underlying ask from the Bangladeshi side: faster, more direct access to Chinese capital, whether for power infrastructure or for trade finance, without routing every deal through existing multilateral or third-country channels.

Country	Chinese bank branch operating locally
Cambodia	Yes
Sri Lanka	Yes
Myanmar	Yes
Bangladesh	No, as of October 2026

What it means for you

If your business imports from or exports to China, the practical bottleneck right now is not policy, it is plumbing. Settlement still typically runs through a correspondent bank in a third country even when yuan pricing is agreed between buyer and seller, which adds a step, a fee, and sometimes a delay to transactions that a locally licensed Chinese bank could clear directly. Until one actually opens a branch, exporters and importers dealing in yuan are better served working with a Bangladeshi bank that has an active China desk, such as EBL or NCC Bank, since those desks already specialize in the documentation Chinese trade requires. Anyone comparing the cost of holding working capital in taka versus a foreign-currency facility while waiting on a Chinese bank to arrive can use the currency converter to track how exchange rate movements affect that calculation in the meantime.

What happens next

Neither Chowdhury's invitation nor Wang Kang's response in Beijing came with a timeline or a named bank committing to apply for a Bangladeshi license. Bangladesh Bank, which would ultimately have to approve any foreign bank's branch license, was not quoted making any commitment at the event. The more concrete, near-term movement is likely to come from the power sector track, where China Exim Bank is already discussing specific project financing with a government ministry rather than making a general appeal to a room of bankers. Whether financial connectivity catches up with trade volume will depend on whether any of the eleven institutions present on October 20 follows up with Bangladesh Bank's licensing office, rather than on how warmly the invitation in Beijing was received.