Banking News
- AgBank says it needs time to modernize
Date: 4-Jun-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
AGRICULTURAL Bank of China (AgBank), the weakest of the nation's State lenders, has up to five years to develop into a modern bank, it said in a statement published in a newspaper Friday.
In a reiteration of its financial performance last year, carried in the official China Securities Journal, AgBank, which is now eyeing a listing, said it needed time to conform to modern standards of financial reporting.
AgBank also said that it had made progress on trimming its bad loan ratio, which had fallen by 2.74 percentage points to 23.43 percent by the end of last year. Previously, an official with the bank had said that the ratio had dipped to 23.6 percent and that AgBank's eventual aim was to slash it to less than 5 percent. The bank, widely expected to be handed between US$80 and US$100 billion by the State to clean up its balance sheet ahead of a potential share offering next year, largely soiled its books by lending to bloated State firms at the government's behest.
But as the massive lender prepared for its restructuring task ahead, it shored up controls on its operating risks last year, it said in Friday's statement.
The bank gave no details on the next steps for its widely awaited restructuring plan that could depart somewhat from the reforms played out within China's three other State commercial lenders, which are now all listed entities.
Like Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, AgBank could bring in foreign strategic investors to help it absorb best practices.
But central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan has said that the bank must keep its focus on serving communities in the countryside, where many of its nearly 25,000 outlets are located.
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