The total foreign and domestic currency assets of Chinese financial institutions rose 19 percent year-on-year to 57.7 trillion yuan (8.45 trillion U.S. dollars) in June, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said on Monday.

The CBRC also said that combined liabilities rose 18.4 percent from the same period last year to 54.4 trillion yuan.

Liabilities of state-owned commercial banks were 28.4 trillion yuan as of June, up 13.7 percent, while those of joint-stock commercial banks were 7.7 trillion yuan, up 25.2 percent.

The bad loan ratio among major commercial banks fell to 6.1 percent as of June 30 amid efforts to enhance risk control, 0.62 percentage point lower than at the beginning of this year.

Banks should further improve risk prevention and boost capital adequacy in the second half, CBRC chairman Liu Mingkang said over the weekend.

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2008)