ICBC and Standard Bank agree on resource fund

BEIJING (Reuters) - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (1398.HK) has signed a final agreement with South Africa's Standard Bank (SBKJ.J) to jointly set up a $1 billion (493.4 million pound) global resource fund, a person familiar with the matter said.

A formal announcement on the deal would be made by the biggest Chinese lender (601398.SS) as early as this week, the source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

State-run ICBC, which recently bought a 20 percent stake in Standard Bank for about $5.5 billion, was not immediately available for comments.

Standard Bank said in October that it and ICBC were discussing the launch of a global resource fund with a targeted size of $1 billion. The fund would focus on opportunities in Africa and China, specifically in the junior mining and energy sectors. It said early this month that they were finalising the terms of the fund in which each would invest $200 million with the remainder made up of third-party funding.

China is trying to boost its investment in the overseas resources sector as its demand for energy and metals surges amid a booming economy.

Chinese aluminium giant Chinalco, parent of Chalco (2600.HK) (601600.SS), recently led a $14 billion stake investment in global miner Rio Tinto (RIO.L) (RIO.AX).

(Reporting by Charlie Zhu; Editing by Ken Wills)