China Construction Bank profit jump 11% to $24b

China Construction Bank Corp, a large State-owned commercial lender, recorded a net profit of 154.1 billion yuan ($23.8 billion) in the first half, an increase of 10.92 percent from the same period last year.

One of the key factors boosting its its profitability is that net interest income increased by 14.58 billion yuan in the first half, up 5.18 percent year-on-year, mainly due to moderate increase in interest-earning assets.

A 6.82 percent increase in net fee and commission income year-on-year also contributed to the steady growth in its profitability, as the bank seized the market opportunities in wealth management and enhanced its comprehensive service capabilities, CCB said in the 2021 interim results announcement on Friday.

The bank increased credit supply in areas such as inclusive finance, advanced manufacturing, strategic emerging industries and green finance to promote high-quality development of the real economy, the part of a country's economy that produces goods and services.

At the end of June, its loans and advances to customers rose by 1.26 trillion yuan, or 7.78 percent, from the end of last year.

The bank comprehensively used financial instruments including green loans, bonds, financial leasing and trusts to foster the development of green industries. The balance of its green loans reached 1.57 trillion yuan at the end of June, up 16.65 percent from the end of last year.

Over the same period, the balance of its inclusive finance loans increased by 288.38 billion yuan to 1.71 trillion yuan. The interest rate of new inclusive loans granted to small and micro businesses was 4.17 percent at the end of June, down 0.19 percentage points from the end of 2020.

During the process of enhancing the quality and efficiency in serving the real economy, CCB also kept improving its comprehensive, proactive and smart risk management system, continuously optimizing its risk control measures, including risk preference, risk assessment and credit extension policies, and enriched its toolbox for digitized and intelligent risk management.

In addition, the bank stepped up efforts to dispose of risks in key areas, holding fast to the bottom line of non-occurrence of systemic financial risks.

At the end of June, its nonperforming loan ratio was 1.53 percent, down 0.03 percentage points from the end of last year. Its special mention loans, potentially weak loans that may spark unwarranted credit risks, accounted for 2.8 percent of the gross loans and advances excluding accrued interest, a decrease of 0.15 percentage points from the end of last year.