Ernst & Young, China Thursday announces setting up a new office in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, during a signing ceremony with the government of Jianye District, Nanjing. The Nanjing office marks the establishment of Ernst & Young’s 15th office in China (including HK and Macau), which brings the total number of employees in Greater China to over 10,000.

Present at the signing ceremony are Feng Yajun, Secretary of the CPC Committee of Jianye District, Nanjing and Deputy Director of the Development and Construction Headquarters of Hexi New Town, Nanjing; Xia Xiaoyan, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC District Committee of Jianye District and Finance Secretary; and senior officials of key government agencies. Representatives from Ernst & Young are Philip Leung, Managing Partner, China Central Region, and Derick Yap, Managing Partner, Ernst & Young’s Suzhou office.

The new office is scheduled to open within the first half of this year.

“As Nanjing accelerates its pace of development into an international city, the CBD has managed to attract many renowned multinational and domestic enterprises to the area,” said Philip Leung at the ceremony. “We are committed to working with the municipal government and making our contributions to the development of Nanjing CBD. We look forward to collaborating with domestic and international companies alike.”

Mr. Leung maintains, “Our decision to open a new office here not only demonstrates our optimism about the potential of Nanjing, but also our confidence in the future of the Yangtze River Delta region as well as the whole of China.”

“Establishing a strong base in Nanjing enables us to strengthen our client-servicing capabilities, to both public and private enterprises, and not only within Jiangsu but also in neighboring provinces, said Mr. Leung. “We regard setting up in Nanjing as a strategic approach to enhancing our businesses in the Yangtze River Delta. We expect to build a regional headquarters in Nanjing, so as to better assist the provincial and municipal government agencies and enterprises by providing solutions to financial management, IPOs, overseas investments and outbound M&A transactions.

Ernst & Young (EY) is one of the largest professional service firms in the world and one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The company generated global revenue of US$22.9 billion by the end of 2011 June. It has 152,000 employees worldwide, including more than 10,000 in China.