China's largest commercial bank posted a strong operating profit for the first three quarters of this year, which it said was a result of efforts in recent years to readjust business structure and improve asset quality.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) said Monday its operating profit in the first nine months of the year came out at 46.2 billion yuan (US$5.6 billion), up 39 percent on a year-on-year basis.

The figure almost matches the 44.9 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) operating profit recorded for all of 2002.

After risk provisions and bad-loan write-offs, the bank realized an after-tax profit of 7.05 billion yuan (US$849 million), which compares with its equivalent for all of 2002 at 6.9 billion yuan (US$831 million).

An ICBC spokesman attributed the strong result to "noticeable progress" in a comprehensive business structure optimizing campaign over recent years, which centred on improving asset quality and profitability.

The bank's non-performing loans, under the internationally-accepted five-category loan classification, fell by 35.8 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) in the first three quarters of this year, or 4.3 percentage points from the end of last year, to 21.56 percent of total outstanding loans at the end of September.

"In disposing of non-performing assets, we think the most crucial thing is to reduce the amount of non-performing assets, not just the ratio," the spokesman said.

The bank's non-performing asset ratio has dipped by nearly 12 percentage points since 2001, while the amount shrank by more than 90 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion), which it claimed was the biggest decline among all Chinese banks.

The bank is also making progress in its efforts to cut back reliance on lending funds, garnering 5.2 billion yuan (US$627 million) in intermediary business income in the three quarters ending September, up 97 percent from a year earlier.

The intermediary business income accounted for 11 percent of the bank's income from lending operations, as compared with the 9 percent ratio last year.

(China Daily October 14, 2003)