DBS Group (DBSM.SI), Southeast Asia’s biggest bank, will grow its staff in China by several hundred this year, adding to the over 1,000 employees there now, its chairman said today.

“We’ll continue to grow our footprint in China,” Koh Boon Hwee told a media conference in Taipei. “We have sent in as many applications for branches and sub-branches as we can in China.”

Separately, the president of the company’s Taiwan unit, Jerry Chen, said it posted a NT$600 million ($26 million) profit last year, turning around its operations on the island a year earlier than expected.

The bank, which has been trying to build its China, India and Indonesia businesses, entered the Taiwanese banking market in 1983 and currently has over 40 branches on the island according to its website.

It will report its 2009 earnings on Feb 5, and is expected to turn in a profit of $503 million in the fourth quarter according to a mean forecast of analysts on Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, up 70% from a year ago.

DBS shares were up 0.4% at lunch, beating a flat performance on the benchmark Straits Times share index.