BoB gets licence to open its subsidiary office in Trinidad

Mumbai, Mar 07 (UNI) Bank of Baroda (BOB) has got the approval from the Central Bank of Trinidad&Tobaggo (T&T) to open its subsidiary office there.

The licence issued by the Central Bank of T&T was handed over to the bank CMD, Anil K Khandelwal by the Trade&Industry Minister of the country, Kenneth Valley who is leading a 70-member business delegation from Trinidad&Tobaggo to India, here today.

After handing over the licence, Mr Valley said that his country was one of the fastest growing economies of the world with an annual GDP growth of 12 per cent and hence to continue the growth process further, he was here to woo Indian industry to anchor their base in his country. India visit was the fourth leg of his current foreign jaunt on completion of his trips to South Korea and China, he said.

Mr Khandelwal said,''Initially we are planning to have one subsidiery office at Port of Spain in T&T and soon we have our plans to open one more subsidiery office in the country''. The bank's focus will be to attract SMEs and the 8-lakh Indian expatriats living in the country. He hoped that with this opening, the bank's operations in the american continent at New York (USA), Nassau (Bahamas)&Georgetown (Guyana) would get synergised.'' Later talking to UNI, bank's GM (International Operations), K K Agarwal said,''We'll start our office by deploying 3-4 staff of our bank to the country but we'll employ local people too in days to come''. He informed that the T&T office of the bank will start functioning within a time period of 3-4 months.

Talking about future plans of his bank, Mr Agarwal said,''We have already got the licence from the competitive authorities of the respective countries for converting our already existing representative offices in countries like Australia, China, Hong Kong and Tanzania. Some of the other countries the bank is looking at to open its offices in future include Canada and Australia.'' UNI KKD PM AG1901