China Everbright Bank records 16% rise in manufacturing loans

China Everbright Bank saw continuous emergence of new drivers for corporate lending in the first half of this year as China underwent economic transformation and upgrading, said senior executives of the bank on Monday.

The national joint-stock commercial lender focused corporate loan issuance on the nation's key areas of strategic development in the first half. As of the end of June, the balance of its manufacturing loans reached 378.2 billion yuan ($54.68 billion), up 16 percent from the beginning of this year. During the same period, the balance of its loans to tech companies rose 27 billion yuan. Its green loans also increased by 33.1 billion yuan, representing a growth rate of 26.6 percent.

"Looking ahead, we will further step up credit support for China's key projects, key regions of strategic development and quality market entities. Our pipeline of projects in these areas are gradually increasing and will make a positive contribution to the growth of our corporate loans in the next step," said Qu Liang, executive vice-president of China Everbright Bank, at a news conference announcing the bank's 2022 interim results.

Fu Wanjun, president of the bank, said it will continue to increase credit issuance in the second half, which is one of the keys for the bank to achieve reasonable growth of operating income and profit while maintaining stable asset quality.

"The key is to improving our industry research ability so that we can find the right directions for asset allocation and the right clients, and provide them with the products and business models that suit their needs," Fu said.

The bank posted a net profit of 23.45 billion yuan in the first half, up 4.1 percent year-on-year.