Former president of China Construction Bank jailed for 15 years

The former president of China Construction Bank (CCB), Zhang Enzhao, has been sentenced to a 15-year jail term for taking bribes.

The sentence was handed down on Friday by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.

The court found that Zhang took advantage of his position between 2000 and 2004, when he was vice president, then president and finally chairman of China Construction Bank Ltd.

The court heard that he received cash and property bribes totaling more than four million yuan (500,000 U.S. dollars).

The court ruled that Zhang committed bribery by abusing his power to benefit other people and illegally received large amounts of cash and property in return.

The court said it gave Zhang a lenient sentence of 15 years because he made a full confession, even though investigators had no hard evidence of the crimes, and because he turned the bribe money over to the state.

Zhang resigned as Chairman of China Construction Bank chairman a year ago last March.

China Construction Bank was the first of China's "big four" state-owned commercial banks to go public when it listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October last year.

Zhang pleaded guilty to the charges against him in September during his first court appearance.

A report published on the CCB's website in June 2005 said Zhang was being investigated by the commission for discipline inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC) for violating party discipline.

Zhang, 60, a graduate of Fudan University, started working in China's banking sector in 1964 and attained the CCB chairmanship in 2004.

Frequent criminal cases in China's banking sector are the result of a variety of factors, including problems within the banking system, conflicts in society, and the credit environment, said an official at China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).

Incomplete management systems, incompetent administration and lack of supervision of executives in commercial banks have also led to crimes in the banking sector, the official said.

Zhang was the latest high rank official in the industry to fall from grace as the government strives to reform the banking system.

Yu Dalu, former deputy governor of the Agriculture Development Bank of China, was sentenced to life imprisonment for bribe taking and embezzlement in February. All his personal property was confiscated.

Liu Jinbao, the Bank of China (BOC) Hong Kong's former president, was sentenced to death with two years in suspension for graft in August 2005.

Wang Xuebing, another former president of the CCB, was sentenced to 12 years in jail for taking bribes in December 2003.

Zhu Xiaohua, former chairman of China Everbright Group, was convicted of accepting bribes and jailed for 15 years in 2002.

China initiated its banking reforms at the end of 2003, when the central government injected 45 billion US dollars into the BOC and CCB to help boost their reform plan.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Bank of China (BOC), two major state-owned commercial banks have already listed on domestic or overseas bourses.

The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the last of the "big four" banks still to list on the stock market, reported fewer bad loans in the first three quarters of the year.

China promised to fully open its banking industry to foreign competition by late 2006 under commitments for entry into the World Trade Organization.

By the end of 2005, 25 foreign investors are reported to have taken stakes in 20 Chinese banks.

Source: Xinhua