Bank of China, one of the country's top four lenders, expected to grow its loan business at a double digit rate this year, its chairman Xiao Gang said Wednesday.
But the growth rate will be less than that of last year, which stood between 13 percent and 14 percent, Xiao said.
The bank set its target for this year's total yuan loans at about 600 billion yuan (about 91 billion U.S. dollars), Xiao said.
He added that the bank will expand loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) this year.
New loans this year will mainly support the culture industry and new industries, while loans to high energy consumption, high pollution and resource-based industries would be strictly controlled, he said.
Further, yuan deposits currently stand at about 70 percent of the bank's total.
The bank may also issue subordinate debt this year, but has no plans for any further share issues for the next three years, Xiao said.
Liquidity in the bank is tightening because of weak growth of foreign exchange deposits as a result of the yuan appreciation, he added.
The yuan has appreciated a record 3.84 percent against the U.S. dollar by Monday since June 19 last year when the People's Bank of China, the central bank, announced it would further reform the exchange rate formation mechanism to improve its flexibility.
In addition, Bank of China's domestic branches handled more than 240 billion yuan worth of yuan-based cross-border trade settlements as of Wednesday, a sharp increase from 160 billion yuan by the end of last year, Cheng Jun, general manager of global trade services for Bank of China' s corporate banking unit, told Xinhua.
The bank handled just 1.6 billion yuan of such settlements in 2009.
China launched a trial program under which companies could use the yuan to settle cross-border trade beginning in July 2009.
But the growth rate will be less than that of last year, which stood between 13 percent and 14 percent, Xiao said.
The bank set its target for this year's total yuan loans at about 600 billion yuan (about 91 billion U.S. dollars), Xiao said.
He added that the bank will expand loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) this year.
New loans this year will mainly support the culture industry and new industries, while loans to high energy consumption, high pollution and resource-based industries would be strictly controlled, he said.
Further, yuan deposits currently stand at about 70 percent of the bank's total.
The bank may also issue subordinate debt this year, but has no plans for any further share issues for the next three years, Xiao said.
Liquidity in the bank is tightening because of weak growth of foreign exchange deposits as a result of the yuan appreciation, he added.
The yuan has appreciated a record 3.84 percent against the U.S. dollar by Monday since June 19 last year when the People's Bank of China, the central bank, announced it would further reform the exchange rate formation mechanism to improve its flexibility.
In addition, Bank of China's domestic branches handled more than 240 billion yuan worth of yuan-based cross-border trade settlements as of Wednesday, a sharp increase from 160 billion yuan by the end of last year, Cheng Jun, general manager of global trade services for Bank of China' s corporate banking unit, told Xinhua.
The bank handled just 1.6 billion yuan of such settlements in 2009.
China launched a trial program under which companies could use the yuan to settle cross-border trade beginning in July 2009.
