Reform schemes for 2 major Chinese banks

cctv.com 03-10-2004 14:33

China's central bank vice-governor and director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, says the country has not yet worked out the specifics or special strategies to reform two of China's major commercial banks.

Guo Shuqing, says the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC, and the China Agricultural Bank, are in the process of formulating their reform strategies. Whether China will inject capital into the ICBC and the China Agricultural Bank from the country's foreign exchange reserve depends on their concrete conditions.

The country's four biggest State-owned commercial banks had combined non-performing loans of 1.9 trillion yuan, or approximately 230 billion US dollars, by January this year.

The four banks account for about 75 percent of the loans and capital offered or owned by the country's banking institutions.

The Chinese government injected 45 billion US dollars late last year from its foreign exchange reserves into the Bank of China and the China Construction Bank, to boost their balance sheets in preparation for stock market listing. They were ordered to clean up their tattered loan books and improve lending practices so that they could be turned into internationally competitive banking firms.

Editor:Zhang  Source:CCTV.com