Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd is seeking to boost fee income and loans to small companies after a cut in interest rates eroded margins, Chairman Jiang Jianqing said yesterday.

The central bank's 27 basis-point cut in the benchmark one-year lending rate on September 15 will reduce ICBC's profit by as much as 500 million yuan (US$73 million) this year, Jiang said.

The cut may have a "bigger impact" on profit in 2009, he added.

"The cut will have a 400 million to 500 million yuan profit impact on us this year," Jiang said. "We are increasing our pricing ability for loans, boosting fee income and adjusting our loan structure to remedy the rate cut."

Jiang has more than doubled ICBC's profit since 2005 as annual economic growth of more than 10 percent bolstered corporate loans and services to the nation's growing number of wealthy people, Bloomberg News said.

(Shanghai Daily September 27, 2008)