Mumbai: As a part of its business strategy, Bank of Baroda is entering South East Asia with its first office at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Bank of Baroda will be the only Indian Bank to have its office in Malaysia from 10th August 2004. R.L.Narayan, high commissioner of India to Malaysia, will be inaugurating the representative office.

Our representative office will be catering to the information and liaison requirements of Malaysian and Indian businesses for furthering the trade and synergies.

Malaysia is playing an important role in South East Asia economic cooperation, integration and development through ASEAN. Increasing economic cooperation and trade resulted in growth of more than 30 per cent in bilateral trade between India and Malaysia in 2003-04, with trade volume crossing US$ 2.5 billion.

The Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI) is organizing the 2^nd Asian Economic Summit at Kuala Lumpur from 9-11 August 2004. The Summit will focus on reconsolidating and regenerating investments into the region to enable Asia to further gain its competitive edge with the theme "Asia''s Economic Future". Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is coordinating the "India Presence" at the Summit. Bank of Baroda has joined CII in this Summit and the Bank is sponsoring a Special Session on "India-ASEAN Partnership".

Bank of Baroda is awaiting approval from host country regulatory authorities for opening representative office in Bangkok, Thailand. Bank has received approvals from Reserve Bank of India for opening Offshore Banking Unit in Singapore, and a branch in Houston, Texas in USA. Necessary steps have been initiated to open these offices as early as possible, after obtaining necessary statutory regulatory approvals from the concerned authorities in these countries. Bank of Baroda will also be opening a fully owned subsidiary in Tanzania shortly.

Bank of Baroda has 55 overseas offices spread over 17 countries comprising 38 overseas branches including 3 Offshore Banking Units, one mobile agency, one Representative Office and 16 branches of 6 overseas subsidiaries. Bank also has one joint venture in Zambia, which has 9 branches.