China Construction Bank (CCB) will avoid foreign acquisitions during the market uncertainty, Reuters reported, citing comments from the bank’s chairman. In an interview published Wednesday by magazine The Asian Banker, Guo Shuqing said there were still too many questions about the asset quality of overseas banks for CCB to consider investing abroad. "Quite a lot of things interest me, but not now, not to buy because of the uncertainty," he said. He said that CCB had suffered during the global economic crisis because of its foreign-exchange exposure, but did not provide details. He added that the central bank’s interest rate cuts would hurt the profitability of Chinese banks this year, even though loan growth would remain close to the 2008 pace.
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