Bank of China reports declining non-performing loan balance, rate

BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of China (BOC), one of the country's four biggest state-owned commercial banks, saw its non-performing loan balance and rate drop in the first half of the year.

The non-performing loan balance was 200.348 billion yuan (30.97 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of June, down 6.925 billion yuan from the beginning of the year, BOC president Liu Jin said at a press conference on Monday.

The BOC's risk resilience continued to grow in the first half of the year, Liu said.

Its non-performing loan provision coverage ratio was 184.26 percent, 6.42 percentage points higher than it was at the beginning of the year.

The lender's net profit rose 9.96 percent year on year to almost 118.55 billion yuan in the first six months. Its net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company increased 11.79 percent year on year to over 112.81 billion yuan.