Bank of Communications (BoCom), said it will issue up to 80 billion yuan (US$11.69 billion) of 10-year subordinated bonds in the 24 months from March 26 to improve its capital adequacy ratio.

BoCom has reported a capital adequacy ratio of 13.77 percent as of Sept 30, 2008, which was above the regulatory requirements. But its core capital adequacy ratio stood at 9.79 percent, which was comparatively lower than other State-owned banks.

Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and Minsheng Banking Corp have said they would issue bonds to keep their capital adequacy ratio above 10 percent.

Xi Junyang, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said: "Bank bonds should be attractive to investors because of the yield that will be pushed up by the large number of issues."

(China Daily January 19, 2009)