The Bank of China (BOC) made profits of 19.18 billion yuan (some 2.3 billion US dollars) in the first quarter of 2005, up 45.8 percent year on year, said a BOC spokesman in Beijing Monday.

"BOC's current performance is excellent," said Wang Zhaowen, BOC spokesman.

By the end of March 2005 the Renminbi deposit of the BOC in the mainland increased to 152.6 billion yuan from the end of 2004.

By the end of March the total asset of BOC was 4385.1 billion yuan, up 3 percent from the end of 2004, with debt totaling 4137.8billion yuan, also up 3 percent.

Last year, China's State Council decided to allocate 45 billion US dollars of the country's foreign exchange reserves for a pilot reform of the BOC and China Construction Banks, two state-owned commercial banks, into joint-stock banks.

Source: Xinhua