Non-performing loans (NPL) issued by major Chinese banks were down 93.4 billion yuan (US$11.3 billion) and the ratio of NPLs to total loans dropped by 3.51 percentage points in the first half of this year.

Statistics released by the China Banking Regulatory Commission on Thursday show NPLs issued by major banks totaled 2,540 billion yuan (US$307.1 billion) and the bad-debt ratio was 19.6 percent at the end of June.

The major banks include the four state-owned commercial banks, three government-run non-profit policy banks and 11 joint-stock commercial banks.

Loans issued by these financial institutions account for 82 percent of the country's total banking loans.

During the first half of this year, bad debts of state-owned commercial banks totaled 2,007 billion yuan (US$243 billion), down 81.1 billion (US$9.8 billion) from the end of last year; policy banks' bad loans amounted to 334 billion yuan (US$40.4 billion), down 6.6 billion yuan (US$798 million);and joint-stock commercial banks 196.7 billion yuan (US$23.8 billion), down 5.7 billion yuan (US$689 million).

Bad-debt ratios of state-owned commercial banks, policy banks and joint-stock commercial banks amounted to 22.19 percent, 18.61 percent and 9.34 percent respectively, down 4.02, 1.18 and 3.51 percentage points.

(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2003)