China Construction Bank (CCB), the world's second largest lender by market value, on Friday posted a 34-percent rise in 2008 net profit on higher interest and fee income, despite losses on its US sub-prime mortgage-related holdings.

The bank, however, said net profit in the fourth quarter fell 30 percent to 8.4 billion yuan ($1.23 billion) on increased provisioning for its overseas investment losses.

CCB's full-year net profit rose to 92.6 billion yuan from 69.1 billion yuan in 2007.

The bank's overall allowance for impairment losses for the full year jumped by 84.2 percent to 50.8 billion yuan, from the previous year's 27.6 billion yuan. The bank's non-performing loans ratio decreased to 2.21 percent, from 2.60 percent.

Capital adequacy ratio dipped slightly to 12.16 percent last year, from 12.58 percent in a year earlier. The bank said in a statement that it plans to sell up to 80 billion yuan worth of subordinated bonds to improve its capital adequacy ratio.

The bank's net interest margin rose to 3.24 percent in 2008, from 3.18 percent in 2007.

CCB's earnings per share grew 33.33 percent in 2008 to 0.40 yuan from 0.30 yuan.

Despite hiking the dividend to 0.084 yuan per share, from 0.065 yuan per share a year earlier, CCB's dividend payout ratio fell 20.9 percent in 2008 from 21.7 percent in 2007.

(China Daily March 28, 2009)