The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC, one of China's top four commercial banks, garnered 49.88 billion yuan (6.5 billion U.S.dollars) in net profits last year, a growth of 31 percent over the year-earlier level.

According to its annual report released on Tuesday, ICBC's earnings per share reached 0.18 yuan.

The bank went public in Shanghai and Hong Kong on Oct. 27, 2006.

The annual report shows that at the end of last year, ICBC's market value exceeded 250 billion U.S. dollars, making it the most valuable stock on China's A-share market, the biggest listed commercial bank in Asia and the third largest in the world.

At the end of December 2006, ICBC's capital adequacy ratio reached a healthy 14.05 percent and its non-performing loan ratio stood at 3.79 percent, according to the annual report.

Last year the bank's loans increased by 342 billion yuan (44 billion U.S. dollars), or 10.4 percent, from the year-earlier level of 3.3 trillion yuan (427 billion U.S. dollars), to 3.6 trillion yuan (471.6 billion U.S. dollars).

The fast growth was mainly realized in credit extensions to the transport, energy and infrastructure sectors as well as to smaller enterprises promising good investment returns and to individuals.

Loans to smaller enterprises soared 59.7 billion yuan (7.8 billion U.S. dollars), or 71.8 percent, and those to individuals, up 61.07 billion yuan (7.9 billion U.S. dollars), or 11.9 percent.

The bank's net earnings on interest rates amounted to 163.1 billion yuan (21.2 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.2 percent.

The annual report says that last year, ICBC's deposits increased by 614.6 billion yuan (79.8 billion U.S. dollars), or 10.7 percent, from the year-earlier level of 5.7 trillion yuan (745.1 billion U.S. dollars) to 6.4 trillion yuan (824.9 billion U.S. dollars).

The bank issued 188.63 million banking cards, up 29.9 percent.

The bank's gross assets reached 7.5 trillion yuan (975.2 billion U.S. dollars), up 16.3 percent, according to the report.

Source: Xinhua