Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (Deloitte), one of the world's most profitable accounting and consulting firms, opened a new branch in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province on Tuesday.

The move indicated Deloitte's confidence in China's market despite the global financial crisis, said Chris Lu, chief executive officer of Deloitte China.

"Though the world has been suffering from the financial crisis, we still have great confidence in the future of China's market," said Lu at the opening ceremony of the branch.

"As an important commercial and cultural city in east China, Hangzhou has attracted many state-owned and foreign-owned enterprises. The new Deloitte office can deliver the full rage of auditing, taxes, consulting and financial advisory services to those enterprises."

Deloitte opened its first office in Shanghai in 1917. It now has more than 8,000 employees in 11 branches in Beijing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Tianjin.

The company reported its sixth consecutive year of double-digit growth in the fiscal year 2008, with aggregate member firm revenue increasing 18.6 percent to 27.4 billion U.S. dollars.