Chinese mainland banks report balanced assets, debt growth

Banks in the Chinese mainland reported total assets worth of 31.49 trillion yuan (3.8 trillion US dollars) at the end of 2004, up 13.6 percent over 2003, said the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the country's banking watchdog.

Meanwhile, they got into debt worth of 30.23 trillion yuan (3.66 trillion US dollars), up 13.4 percent over 2003, according to a CBRC report released Wednesday in Beijing.

State-owned banks had total assets worth of 16.92 trillion yuan (2.05 trillion US dollars), a year-on-year rise of 11.2 percent, and debts totaling 16.21 trillion yuan (1.96 trillion US dollars), up 11.1 percent over 2003, the report said.

Joint-stock banks' total assets increased by 22.2 percent to 4.7 trillion yuan (568.32 billion US dollars) and owed 4.54 trillion yuan (548.97 billion US dollars), a year-on-year rise of 22.2 percent.

Urban community banks also had their total assets rise by 16.3 percent to 1.71 trillion yuan (206.77 billion US dollars) while their debts up 16.3 percent to 1.65 trillion yuan (199.52 billion US dollars).

Four state-owned asset management companies took back 137 billion yuan (16.5 billion US dollars) by clearing non-performing assets worth of 675 billion yuan (81.3 billion US dollars) last year, the report said.

The Chinese government founded the four companies to clear bad assets left by the four state-owned commercial banks, the Construction Bank of China (CBC), the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and the Bank of China (BOC), in 1999.

Source: Xinhua