INDUSTRIAL & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) said Saturday that it was super-cautious when choosing acquisition targets abroad because it knew it was a new hand in the global financial market.

A number of domestic banks, insurers and government agencies have bought into global financial institutions hit by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.

“But we are extremely cautious every single step along the way when going abroad, especially under the current circumstances, as we know we are newcomers to the sophisticated global financial market,” said Jiang Jianqing, chairman of ICBC, the world’s largest bank by capitalization.

“To be honest, we are keeping our purse strings very tight and, when choosing where to swim, we often start from places with shallower water,” he told a session of the Boao Forum for Asia being held on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.

Jiang said that ICBC was still in talks with Bangkok Bank, Thailand’s biggest lender, about a possible stake sale in ACL Bank.

ICBC has been seeking to buy a 30.6 percent stake in ACL from the Thai Finance Ministry, ACL’s biggest shareholder, and Bangkok Bank since late 2007.

The lack of news on progress sparked market concerns that the deal might have failed.

Jiang said ICBC was more interested in emerging markets when expanding abroad because the region had more robust growth and was not affected much by the credit crisis. (SD-Agencies)