By Julie Zhu, Scott Murdoch and Nupur Anand
HONG KONG/SYDNEY/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, travels to mainland China this month for the first time in four years, sources said, the latest in a series of visits by top foreign financial executives since the lifting of tough COVID-19 curbs.
The trip comes as JPMorgan hosts three conferences in the financial hub of Shanghai at the end of the month, said four sources, who all have direct knowledge of the matter.
The visit is Dimon’s first to mainland China since the pandemic gathered pace in 2020 and closed the world’s second-largest economy for almost three years as it enforced some of the world’s most stringent restrictions.
JPMorgan will host the Morgan Tech Exchange conference, the China New Economy Forum and the Global China Summit over a three-day day period in Shanghai towards the end of this month, according to two of the sources.
The sources sought anonymity as the information is not yet public.
Dimon will attend the conferences and hold internal and external meetings, one of the sources said. He will also visit Hong Kong in early June after the Shanghai trip, two of the sources added.
Dimon visited the Asian financial hub of Hong Kong to meet the bank’s staff and clients in November 2021.
A JPMorgan spokesperson in Hong Kong declined to comment on Dimon’s visit to mainland China and Hong Kong.
JPMorgan’s China business presence includes its wholly-owned securities venture, which offers securities underwriting and advisory services. The Wall Street bank acquired 100% ownership of its funds management joint venture in January.
The approval process for the funds business stretched more than two years.
Almost 1,500 people, mostly foreign investors, will attend the Global China Summit, one of the sources said, in a sign that overseas investors remain interested in buying back into China after its January re-opening from its “zero-COVID” policy.
In recent years, Wall Street and European financial firms have stepped up expansion efforts in China, seeking to boost their presence via new set-ups and joint-venture partnerships.
Late in March, a flurry of top financial executives visited China for the first time since the COVID pandemic, as global financial giants seek to cement ties with Beijing at the start of President Xi Jinping’s new term.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, HSBC CEO Noel Quinn and Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters were among those who held face-to-face meetings with Chinese officials and regulators at the time.
(Reporting by Julie Zhu in Hong Kong, Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Nupur Anand in New York; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Clarence Fernandez)
