Toyoki, who had spent one year studying at Beijing Language and Culture University, came to Shanghai in 1994, serving the Industrial Bank of Japan (Shanghai Branch), which only had around 30 staff; while the total number of Japanese residents across Shanghai was less than 2,000.

From 1994 to 1996, the whole bank was going all out to get the RMB business qualification, according to Toyoki, who was busy with preparation together with his colleagues every day. At the same time, he had to adjust himself to life in Shanghai. As they were not good at Chinese, he and other Japanese staff had to turn to their Chinese colleagues for help when they were in trouble.

Toyoki still remembers that on the last day of 1996, Zhao Qizheng, then vice mayor of Shanghai, announced the news that the Industrial Bank of Japan was approved as the one of the first batch of foreign banks qualified to open an RMB business in China.

(Governor of the Industrial Bank of Japan Yoh Kurosawa at a meeting with Zhu Rongji, then Governor of the People’s Bank of China in 1995)