No schemes yet to reform on 2 major banks: official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 09, 2004

No schemes yet to reform on 2 major banks: official

China has not yet worked out the special strategies pertaining to the reforms of its two other major commercial banks, according to a senior central bank official here Monday.

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China has not yet worked out the special strategies pertaining to the reforms of its two other major commercial banks, according to a senior central bank official here Monday.

Guo Shuqing, vice-governor of China's central bank and director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the China Agricultural Bank, are in the process of formulating their reform strategies, which have yet to be determined by the central government.

The country's four biggest State-owned commercial banks, namely,the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the Bank of China, the CCB, and the China Agricultural Bank, have a combined non-performing loans (NPL) of 1.9 trillion yuan (approximately 230billion US dollars) by January this year.

The four banks account for about 75 percent of the loans and capital offered or owned by the country's banking institutions.

"Whether China will inject capital into the ICBC and the China Agricultural Bank from the country's foreign exchange reserve depends on their concrete conditions."

The Chinese government injected 45 billion US dollars late lastyear from its foreign exchange reserve into the Bank of China and the China Construction Bank to boost their balance sheets in preparation for stock market listing. They were ordered to clean up their tattered loan books and improve lending practices so thatthey would be turned into internationally competitive banking firms.

The Bank of China and the CCB were selected for introducing stock-holding system on a trial basis since their ratio of non-performing loans to total assets was relatively lower, Guo acknowledged, and they enjoyed better liquidity and quality in assets than the ICBC and the China Agricultural Bank.

The wholly State-owned commercial banks constitute a major partof China's financial sector, and it is a right direction for thosebanks to introduce a stock-holding system, he said.

He cited the transformation of corporate governance as crucial to the endeavor to turn State-owned commercial banks into competitive and modern commercial banks, whereas the infusion of capital by the central government represents only one of less important factors.

Capital infusion helps the two commercial banks dispose of non-performing assets, and the introduction of auditing from outside the banks and strategic foreign investors constitute the essentialmoves to set up a regular corporate governance system, noted the vice-governor.

"Without the introduction of a corporate governance system," headded, "injecting capital into (the banks) itself would be meaningless."

During in his annual state-of-the-nation address to China's national legislature, Premier Wen Jiabao said China needs to "accelerate the reform of the wholly state-owned commercial banks".

Source:Xinhua

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