Net profit of China Citic Bank grew 60.7 percent year-on-year to 13.3 billion yuan (1.95 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008, announced the bank in its 2008 annual report released on Tuesday night.

Business income of the bank grew 44.3 percent from a year earlier to 40.16 billion yuan in 2008, according to the report.

The Beijing-based bank said its assets quality continued to improve last year, with non-performing loans ratio dropping by 0.12 percentage points to 1.36 percent by the end of 2008, and the bank's provision coverage ratio rose by 40 percentage points to 150 percent.

Returns of net assets increased 0.54 percentages points to 14.84 percent.

The bank's A-shares gained 1.91 percent to 4.79 yuan on Tuesday prior to the report release.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2009)