BOC to run an EMBA program
The Bank of China (BOC), a leading state-owned commercial bank, recently signed agreements with the business school at London City University and a Chinese university to jointly run an EMBA (executive MBA) program in Shanghai.

To train high-quality professionals
BOC views this as an effort to train high-quality professionals to confront formidable competition following China's entry into the WTO.

According to the agreements, the program aims to nurture management personnel abreast with international economic and banking environments and practices by offering MBA courses combining international standards with Chinese characteristics.

Chinese banks in urgent need of high-quality professionals
"High-quality management personnel and professionals are the key to maintaining a competitive edge when dealing with other WTO countries," Liu Mingkang, president and chairman of BOC said at the signing ceremony.

He said that it is urgent for Chinese banks to encourage high-quality professionals by working with leading domestic and overseas universities.

Schedule of BOC's EMBA program
Sources from BOC's training and education department say the Shanghai EMBA program is scheduled to start in late October this year at BOC's Institute of International Finance in Shanghai. It will enroll 40-50 students in the first year, half of which will be BOC employees.

The Shanghai University of Finance and Economics will assist. In the Financial Times EMBA rating, London City University's EMBA program was ranked among the global top ten in 2001.

China's EMBA System
In tandem with the national training program for business leaders of State-owned enterprises, China kicked off the executive MBA (EMBA) system in 1997. Statistics show that China had 6,178 EMBA students by the end of 1998.

Top 50 executive MBA programs
The Financial Times carried out a survey on executive MBA (EMBA) programs at the end of 2001. Inviting 72 business schools to take part in the survey they published the top 50 schools in November 2001.

The rankings of the top 10 schools are shown below.

1 Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) USA
2 Columbia GSB USA
3 London Business School UK
4 Stern (New York University) USA
5 Chicago USA
6 Kellogg (Northwestern University) USA
7 Instituto de Empresa Spain
8 IESE Spain
9 Goizuetta (Emory University) USA
10 City University Business School UK