The net profit of the China Merchants Bank reached 2.13 billion yuan (US$263 million) in the first six months this year, an increase of 26.4 percent year on year, the Economic Daily reported on Wednesday.

By the end of June, the total assets of the China Merchants Bank were worth 671.4 billion yuan, with outstanding deposit of 585.8 billion yuan and outstanding loans of 452.6 billion yuan, it quoted the half-year report of the China Merchants Bank as saying.

The non-performing loan rate of the bank was 2.57 percent, 0.3 percentage points lower than the beginning of this year, it reported.

The China Merchants Bank in the first half year succeeded in increasing its assets by a large margin and stabilizing its capital adequacy ratio, it said.

The growth rate of the bank's loans to individuals was higher than that of loans to enterprises, according to the newspaper.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2005)