China's four biggest state-owned commercial banks released their half-year results one after another this week.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Figures released Wednesday by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) show that at the end of June, the bank's non-performing loans (NPL) ratio was lowered by 3.5 percentage points to 22 percent.
In the first half of this year, the NPL was reduced by 30.27 billion yuan (US$3.66 billion).
The figures show that the ICBC's domestic branches realized operational profits of 31.77 billion yuan in the first six months, up 46 percent from the same period last year, of which the book profit was 4.54 billion yuan and 15.79 billion yuan was transferred to risk reserves.
By the end of June, the bank's total assets exceeded 5 trillion yuan, according to the figures.
Bank of China
Bank of China, the country's largest foreign exchange bank, said Thursday that its operating profits rose 27 percent during the first half of this year compared with a year ago.
The bank's operating profits stood at 27 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion) during the January-June period, an increase of 5.75 billion yuan (US$692.7 million) from the same period of last year.
The bank's pre-tax profits rose year-on-year by 84.53 percent to 12.96 billion yuan (US$1.56 billion), said bank spokesman Wang Zhaowen.
The spokesman said the strong profit gains were mainly because of the rapid growth in renminbi deposits, renminbi loans and non-interest business, and the improvement of asset quality.
By the end of June, the bank's outstanding amount of renminbi deposits had increased by 208.97 billion yuan (US$25.2 billion) compared with the end of last year.
The outstanding amount of renminbi loans increased by 165.4 billion yuan (US$19.9 billion) from the end of last year.
By the end of June, the bank's non-performing loans, by the international standard of five category classification, dropped 3.33 percentage points compared with the beginning of the year to 19.16 percent.
Since 2000, Bank of China had mapped out an ambitious plan to turn itself into a large international bank, with competitive advantages and relatively good corporate governance within three to five years.
China Construction Bank
The China Construction Bank (CCB) announced Friday that in the first half of this year it disposed of 31.5 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion) worth of non-performing loans (NPLs), of which 20 billion yuan was recovered, including 17.8 billion yuan in cash.
According to the five-category clarification standard, the bank's NPL rate was lowered to 12.43 percent, down 3.47 percentage points from the beginning of the year.
A spokesman for the CCB said that in the second half of this year, the bank would pay special attention to handling non-credit assets and make sure the target of lowering the NPL rate by four percentage points within the year could be achieved.
Agricultural Bank of China
The Agricultural Bank of China, one of the country's four biggest State-owned commercial banks, reported a total profit of 7.93 billion yuan (US$967 million) for the first half of this year, the bank announced on Thursday.
Yang Mingsheng, vice-president of the bank, said the profit represents an increase of 4.4 billion yuan (US$536 million) over the corresponding period last year.
Addressing the bank's work conference on Thursday, Yang said, at the end of June, the bank's outstanding deposits stood at 340.8billion yuan (US$41.5 billion), exceeding the bank's annual target by 4.8 percent.
Its outstanding loans rose by 261 billion yuan (US$31.8 billion) from the beginning of this year, said Yang.
Yang said the bank's non-performing loan rate decreased by 3.53percentage points from the beginning of this year.
(Edited by china.org.cn July 18, 2003)
