Banks in the Chinese mainland reported total assets worth of 31.49 trillion yuan (US$3.8 trillion) at the end of 2004, up 13.6 percent over 2003, said the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the country's banking watchdog.

Meanwhile, they got into debt worth of 30.23 trillion yuan (US$3.66 trillion), up 13.4 percent over 2003, according to a CBRC report released in Beijing Wednesday.

State-owned banks had total assets worth of 16.92 trillion yuan (US$2.05 trillion), a year-on-year rise of 11.2 percent, and debts totaling 16.21 trillion yuan (US$1.96 trillion), up 11.1 percent over 2003, the report said.

Joint-stock banks' total assets increased by 22.2 percent to 4.7 trillion yuan (US$568.32 billion) and owed 4.54 trillion yuan (US$548.97 billion), a year-on-year rise of 22.2 percent.

Urban community banks also had their total assets rise by 16.3 percent to 1.71 trillion yuan (US$206.77 billion) while their debts up 16.3 percent to 1.65 trillion yuan (US$199.52 billion).

Four state-owned asset management companies took back 137 billion yuan (US$16.5 billion) by clearing non-performing assets worth of 675 billion yuan (US$81.3 billion) last year, the report said.

The Chinese government founded the four companies to clear bad assets left by the four state-owned commercial banks, the Construction Bank of China (CBC), the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and the Bank of China (BOC), in 1999.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2005)