ICBC Aims for Overall Listing Within Five Years

Home>>Business

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, April 20, 2002

ICBC Aims for Overall Listing Within Five Years

The president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Friday said his bank was on course to being listed on Chinese and foreign stock markets within five years.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

The president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Friday said his bank was on course to being listed on Chinese and foreign stock markets within five years.

Jiang Jianqing said that he was confident that China's major state-owned commercial banks will be able to solve their problems to survive mounting foreign competition.

During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum's China Business Summit in Beijing, he said: "We are fully capable of overcoming the current difficulties."

He said the high level of bad debts is the biggest difficulty for the major state-owned commercial banks--the ICBC, the China Construction Bank, the Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China.

The four sold off 1.4 trillion yuan (about 168 billion U.S. dollars in bad debts in 1999 to four specially established asset- management companies.

However, banking regulators recently disclosed that non- performing loans at the four still account for one-quarter of their total assets.

Nevertheless, Jiang said the profits his bank makes will be sufficient to crack problems of asset quality and inadequate capital within five years.

He said the bad-debt ratios from loans issued by his bank since 1998 have been reduced dramatically.

Defaulted loans made up 0.8 percent of the total credit issued by the ICBC from 1999 to April 2002. The figure for the period between 2001 and April 2002 was 0.2 percent, Jiang said.

As a result of the improved performance of lending business, the bank's profits grew rapidly. They soared 80 percent during the first quarter of this year year-on-year, Jiang said.

Answering questions concerning details of the bank's listing plan, Jiang said he favors listing the banks as a whole instead of first listing some of its profitable subsidiaries, as suggested by some market players.

Questions?Comments? Click here

ICBC's Five-Year Development Targets

ICBC Savings Deposits Top 2 Trillion Yuan

Chinese Companies Required to Hold Sending More Workers to Israel ( 5 Messages)

Chinese Scientists Among First to Crack Genetic Code of Rice ( 10 Messages)

Chen Shui-bian Preaches Again "Taiwan Independence" ( 17 Messages)

China's Economy to Grow Above Six Percent ( 20 Messages)

Ins and Outs of a Young American's Roguery on Bus in China ( 115 Messages)

Venezuelan Parliament Refuses to Recognize Interim President ( 15 Messages)