The state-owned Agricultural Bank of China, one of the four big state lenders, posted a 63 percent jump in profit for 2004 to 32 billion yuan (US$3.86 billion), up from 19.6 billion yuan the previous year, Xinhua reported.

Deposits increased by 519 billion yuan last year, as loans climbed 314 billion yuan.

Xinhua quoted president Yang Mingsheng as saying the bank would work hard this year to improve its customer services and boost asset quality and risk controls.

He said the bank would scrutinize all new loans made since 2000 and punish staff who failed to follow risk management rules.

The Agricultural Bank of China is eager to clean up its books and sell shares publicly but, like rival the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), it has yet to receive a bailout from the Central Government.

In December, 2003, the government pumped a combined US$45 billion into the China Construction Bank and the Bank of China, the other two of the four big banks.

There has been no sign that the Agricultural Bank of China could be in line for a similar bailout even though the bank is generally credited with improving its operations in the late 1990s under former chairman Shang Fulin.

The China Construction Bank and the Bank of China are inching toward stock offerings slated for mainland and overseas bourses this year or next. Both have scrapped a New York share sale, preferring to sell shares on more lightly regulated bourses in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The two banks are hoping to raise as much as a combined US$10 billion from the stock offerings.

The ICBC hopes to sell shares by 2006 at the earliest, with the Agricultural Bank of China--the last major lender to attempt to restructure as a joint stock bank--targeting a stock offering further down the line.

(Shenzhen Daily January 31, 2005)