RPT-China's biggest bank to get Malaysia license - paper

(Repeats to wider coding)

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (1398.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) (601398.SS: Quote, Profile, Research), the country's biggest lender, will get a license to open in Malaysia when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits on Nov. 10-11 and a raft of commercial deals will be signed, the Straits Times newspaper reported.

Citing an unnamed senior Malaysian government official, the Singapore paper reported on Wednesday that ICBC would get an operating license and be allowed to open four branches.

"We hope to get the approvals ready for the visit," the paper cited the official as saying. "There will be other economic initiatives, which will include invitations to Chinese companies to participate in infrastructure ventures and take strategic stakes in Malaysian companies and projects."

No one from the Malaysian government or central bank was immediately available to comment.

Malaysia is fighting for scarce foreign direct investment and has slipped behind regional peers such as Indonesia and Thailand in the race for investment, in part as economic policies restrict who can own companies. [ID:nKLR343775]

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who took office in April, has rolled back some of the affirmative action programmes favouring the 55 percent of the 28 million population that is ethnic Malay in a bid to reverse that trend. [ID:nKLR467124]

Malaysia has said it will award two new commercial banking licenses this year to foreigners, two new Islamic banking licenses and up to a further three commercial bank licenses in 2011.

In addition to attracting Chinese banks, there have been reports in the Malaysian media that a Chinese investment fund could take a 10 percent stake in the country's biggest company, plantations-to-property conglomerate Sime Darby (SIME.KL: Quote, Profile, Research). [ID:nKLR449580]

Both the Malaysian government and Sime have denied the reports. (Reporting by David Chance; editing by Ian Geoghegan)