ICBC says first half profits up 27% on loan surge

BEIJING - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world's largest commercial lender by market value, Thursday reported first-half profits rose 27.3 percent year-on-year, boosted by increase of loans and fee revenues from financial services.

Earnings per share were 0.25 yuan, an increase of 20 percent year-on-year.

While maintaining its position as the world's most profitable bank, ICBC also improved its asset quality with its non-performing loan ratio declining to 1.26 percent by the end of June, down 0.28 percentage points from the end of last year, the statement said.

The non-performing ratio of credit to property developers stood at 0.8 percent by the end of June, and to mortgage borrowers at 0.44 percent.

New yuan loans increased 10 percent to 524.1 billion yuan in the first six months, most of which went into major infrastructure construction, development of industries of strategic importance backed by the government.

Loans for small business stood at 390.9 billion yuan in the first half, exceeding the total of last year.

Income from fees and commissions rose 33 percent to 36.9 billion yuan.