Swiss bank UBS has sold 3.378 billion H-shares it held in the Bank of China (BOC), a BOC spokesman said Wednesday.

The shares unloaded by the UBS accounted for 4.44 percent of the BOC's total Hong Kong-traded shares, BOC's spokesman Wang Zhaowen told Xinhua by phone.

The lock-up period of the UBS' sharesholding expired on Wednesday, said Wang.

There have been growing concerns that UBS and other western banks would sell their shares in Chinese lenders to ease their own pressure as global financial crisis spread.

(Xinhua News Agency December 31, 2008)