Assets of China's State-owned Commercial Banks Top 10 Trillion YuanBy the end of June, the total assets of China's four wholly state-owned commercial banks had reached 10.7 trillion yuan (US$1.29 trillion), according to statistics released today by the People's Bank of China, the central bank.The outstanding amount of deposits in the four banks totaled 8.2 trillion yuan (US$987 billion), while that of loans totaled 6.09 trillion yuan (US$733.7 billion). A central bank spokesman said that the four state-owned commercial banks are quickening their steps in reforming their management systems in a bid to establish a modern banking system. Among this year's list of 1,000 largest banks worldwide, selected by Britain's "Banker" magazine based on their capital strength, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China and the China Construction Bank ranked the tenth, twentieth, twenty-first and thirty-second respectively. He said that all these banks have successfully implemented the reforming measures put forward in the National Work Conference on Finance held in November 1997, including streamlining branches and subsidiaries, practicing asset-liability management, separation of banking business from other economic entities, and the implementation of a new classification system for credit quality. He said that the banks are adopting new measures to advance various reforms and reinforce internal control, and have designated management targets for the coming few years in an effort to bring about noticeable improvements in management efficiency and asset quality. |
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