Joint-stock banks breaking through state-dominated banking business in China

Eleven joint-stock banks in China showed a vigorous growth in recent years as the four state-owned banks are busy restructuring.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) told Xinhua Tuesday that joint-stock banks had total assets worth 3.8 trillion yuan at the end of 2003, accounting for 14 percent of all banks in China, up 162 percent over 1999.

By April this year, four state-owned commercial banks reported total assets of 15.8 trillion yuan, or 55 percent of the total.

The non-performing loan rate of joint-stock banks lowered to 7.12 percent by March this year while big state-owned banks reported 19.15 percent.

In 1999, the non-performing loans took up 20.92 percent of the total loans of joint-stock banks.

"This is much better than we had expected in 1999," said a CBRC official. "Their efforts to improve corporate governance and internal risk control since 2001 have worked."

At the end of last year six of the 11 joint-stock banks managed to reach an adequate capital reserve meeting the CBRC requirement.

After the state investment of 45 billion US dollars, the state-owned Bank of China and China Construction Bank reached adequate capital reserve, 16.5 percent and 14.14 percent respectively, but the other two are still lower than the internationally accepted 8 percent.

Though having more flexible operation and lighter burden than state-owned banks, some joint-stock banks have problems such as blindly pursuing loan growth or market expansion, over which the administration will tighten supervision, the CBRC official said.

Source: Xinhua