Last year, outstanding deposits in local and foreign currencies at both Chinese and foreign financial institutions in Shanghai amounted to 1,403.5 billion yuan (US$169.096 billion), including 277.644 billion yuan (US$33.45 billion) deposited within the year, up 24.66 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, according to the latest statistics from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Shanghai Branch, outstanding loans by the institutions also smashed the one-trillion-yuan (US$120.48) mark to reach 1,055.094 billion yuan (US$127.12 billion) last year, including 177.168 billion yuan (US$21.35 billion) made within the year, up 20.18 percent.

Beside the enviable growth in both deposits and loans, the financial institutions lowered their non-performing loan (NPL) rate to 6.81 percent last year, the lowest among their peers across China. Of these, state-owned institutions reported an NPL rate of 8.14 percent, down 2.36 percentage points from the previous year, said Hu Pingxi, president of the PBOC Shanghai Branch.

(People's Daily January 11, 2003)