The China Construction Bank (CCB) is bracing itself to get itself in the stock market this year, the bank said Friday.

"2005 is a critical year for the bank to advance joint-stock reform and try to sell shares to the public," the leading state bank said in a statement after a recent shareholders' meeting.

No effort should be spared to introduce strategic foreign investors, establish a complete information disclosure system and improve the administration of investors' relationships, it said.

Guo Shuqing, the CCB chairman, said earlier that his bank had finished its prospectus for listing.

His remarks were echoed by the bank spokesman Fan Yifei, who said the bank, which is expected to raise several billion US dollars in its initial public offering, will soon submit materials including a prospectus to stock exchanges and relative supervision departments.

Fan confirmed the bank's talks with potential foreign strategic investors were still going on.

"We already have several targets, some of which we are having in-depth talks with," he said, adding that the bank plans to select one to three such investors.

The investors should have business advantages and be willing to share management expertise with, and transfer technology to, the CCB, he said.

The bank's former chairman Zhang Enzhao stepped down amid media reports of alleged corruption and the central government named Guo, former head of the foreign exchange regulator, to lead the bank.

The market has speculated that the resignation of the former chairman could hurt the bank's listing progress.

Figures show the bank raked in 50.2 billion yuan (some 6 billion US dollars) in 2004 in pre-tax profits, a year-on-year jump of 34.01 percent. The figure was audited by the international accounting firm KPMG.

The bank's major business indicators have been close to the medium or higher levels of the world's top 100 banks, Fan said.

By the end of 2004, the CCB's non-performing loan ratio dropped to 3.92 percent, as against the 1-2 percent level for a sophisticated international bank.

Its capital adequacy ratio, a measure of its available capital in proportion to its outstanding loans, rose to 11.29 percent. This is above the 8 percent minimum requirement for a commercial bank by the international standard.

The CCB, which won 22.5 billion US dollars in capital injection from the State at the end of 2003, was picked by the government as a pilot to turn it into a competitive enterprise.

Last September the bank established a joint stock listing vehicle named China Construction Bank Corporation, following the split-up of the institution into two parts.

In past few decades, China's state banks were treated as a source of money to prop up failing government companies. This has left them debt-ridden and with little capital to meet regulator requirements, analysts say.

Bank reform has been more urgent as China prepares to meet commitments to the World Trade Organization, opening its financial markets to foreign competitors by 2006.

Besides the CCB, three other state banks -- the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China (BOC) and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) -- are all on similar reform agenda.

Source: Xinhua