The building will be renamed to reflect its status as the bank's Hong Kong headquarters, but no official name change was announced yesterday.

Great Eagle assistant director Adrian Lee declined to reveal the rent ICBC had agreed to pay but he said it was a reasonable price, reflecting market conditions.

Great Eagle deputy chairman and managing director Lo Ka-shui said the new supply of grade A office space in the next five years, especially in prime areas, would be much lower than the historical average.

'The supply-demand imbalance will lead to a significant drop in vacancy rates and in turn a major increase in prime office rents in the next few years,' Mr Lo said.

The space taken by ICBC (Asia) is the bulk of the 140,000 sq ft space formerly occupied by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

The regulator of Hong Kong banks has moved its headquarters to Two IFC with the acquisition of 14 floors of the office building at Hong Kong Station in Central. Peggy Sito

Traffic warning cuts Jiangsu Expressway stock

H share Jiangsu Expressway saw its share price slide 4.13 per cent to $3.475 after warning of a 30 per cent decrease in traffic on its flagship toll road.

The stock closed 15 cents lower yesterday, with 7.66 million shares worth $26.81 million changing hands.

Jiangsu Expressway, one of the mainland's most profitable toll-road operators, said on Monday that some traffic on the Jiangsu section of the 258km Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway would be diverted until the end of August to allow road widening.

The company warned that its toll revenue would be adversely affected as a result of an estimated 30 per cent reduction in traffic volume over the next three months.

It is spending 10.54 billion yuan on widening the expressway to eight lanes from four by 2006, which will accommodate the rising demand for road transport. Denise Tsang

Guangdong Brewery plans 375m yuan Dongguan plant

Guangdong Brewery Holdings, the mainland's No12 brewer by volume, plans to invest 375 million yuan in a new plant to expand production of its flagship Kingway beer.

The plant, which will initially have a capacity of 200,000 tonnes a year, will be the first brewery to be built in Dongguan.

Chief financial officer Stephen Fung Sing-hong said his company chose to site a new brewery in Dongguan because the city's beer consumption was growing fast.

'Dongguan's market potential is second only to Shenzhen,' Mr Fung said.

The new plant, which will sell beers across the Pearl River Delta, is part of Guangdong Brewery's plan to more than double its annual production capacity to 1.15 million tonnes.

The new brewery's production capacity will eventually be expanded to 400,000 tonnes a year.

Construction will start next year and is scheduled to be completed in early 2006.

Mr Fung said Guangdong Brewery, in which Heineken has a 21 per cent stake, planned to produce Heineken beer soon. Winston Yau