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Bad loans hinder ICBC stock listing
( 2002-05-10 10:08 ) (1 )

Asset quality remains the biggest hurdle in the listing plans of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the bank's President Jiang Jianqing said in Shanghai Thursday.

He was speaking on the sidelines of high-profile seminars preceding this year's Asian Development Bank annual conference, scheduled to run from Friday until Sunday.

The head of China's biggest State-owned commercial bank said non-performing loans, as well as other financial burdens, would be major issues to grapple with the coming five years.

"Our plan is to complete our shareholding reform in five years and try to get listed by the end of 2006," Jiang told reporters. "At present, the biggest problem is bad loans and financial burdens."

The president said his colleagues are working on plans to bring down the bank's non-performing loan ratio - through both write-offs and rejuvenating problematic loans - to below 10 per cent within five years, largely on the strength of its own revenues.

Last month, the bank revealed its non-performing loan ratio for the first time. The ratio was an alarming 29.8 per cent of outstanding loans at the end of last year. Jiang said he thought the bank's disclosure of the figure had been reported positively throughout the media.

Jiang said his figure was reliable. He cited an Ernst & Young audit report of his bank's Shanghai and Zhejiang branches last year, which found little discrepancies with the bank's own auditing results.

He added that foreign auditors had said they were impressed by the "huge changes" taking place within his reform-engaged bank "every month."

Jiang said his bank would aggressively extend the areas covered by external auditing in the years ahead to meet listing requirements.

He said stock investors will be attracted to State-owned commercial banks by their capital strength and good reputation among Chinese people.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank has 4.3 trillion yuan (US$518 billion) in total assets. Some analysts are concerned about the complexity of publicly listing a bank of that magnitude but Jiang said a partial listing would not be the best choice.

He said listing only some better-quality assets would be an easy approach for China's commercial banks but the relationship between the listed firm and the parent would be a thorny issue and could lead to scandals.