China Minsheng Banking Corp. on late Thursday reported a 65.8 percent year-on-year increase in its first-half net profit.

The country's first private bank saw its net profit swell to 2.82 billion yuan (371 million U.S. dollars) with earnings per share of 0.23 yuan.

The bank attributed the growth to expansion of assets and increases in the net fee and commission income from its intermediary business, according to the bank's statement.

For the Jan-June period, the bank's business income went up 47.4 percent to 11.3 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S dollars), of which the net fee and commission income soared by 59 percent to 985 million yuan (129.6 million U.S. dollars).

By the end of June, the bank's total assets had increased 17.5 percent to 852.1 billion yuan (112.1 billion U.S. dollars) from 127 billion yuan at the end of last year, with deposits at 641.8 billion yuan and loans (including discounts) at 541.9 billion yuan.

The bank's non-performing loan ratio stood at 1.1 percent, much lower than the average of China's five large state-owned banks.

The bank said in its statement that China's two biggest insurers, China Life Insurance Co., Ltd. and China Pingan Insurance Company, are among its top ten shareholders and had contributed to expansion of its business scope.

The bank would step up reforms of business management in the second half of the year including improving financial services for small- and medium-sized enterprises and developing new services, said the statement.

The China Minsheng Bank, listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in December 2000, is a shareholding commercial bank focused on aiding non-state-owned industrial and commercial enterprises.

It has about 287 outlets nationwide, compared with 16,807 branches at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd, the nation's largest.

(Xinhua News Agency August 31, 2007)