Bank of China, the country's third largest commercial bank, said Friday that its new yuan-dominated loans totaled 901.9 billion yuan (132 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year.

Outstanding bad performaing loans fell 11.5 billion yuan from the beginning of this year, and the bad loan ratio declined 1.4 percentage points, the bank said.

The lender's spokesman Wang Zhaowen said the fast growth in the first half was because of a low base figure from 2008. The loans were extended in line with the moderately easy monetary policy the government unveiled last year to curb the country's economic slowdown.

The bank gave about 386.3 billion yuan of new yuan-dominated loans last year.

Wang said the big mount of credit was granted mainly to construction of railways, post-quake reconstruction in Sichuan and south-to-north water transper projects as well as to help enterprises to invest overseas such as PetroChina and Sinopec.

Chinese lenders extended 7.37 trillion yuan of new loans in the first six months, exceeding the full year target of five trillion yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency July 25, 2009)