Chinese banks nearly doubled their lending in January, raising concerns that loan quality could suffer, but banking and policy experts told Xinhua they believe financial institutions won't return to the days of high non-performing loan (NPL) rates because the industry's risk controls and capital base have improved.

The banks won't experience the same problems plaguing financial sectors in other countries, despite the pressure of the global economic downturn, the experts said. That is because much of the new lending this year will probably result from the central government stimulus plans, which will go into projects such as railroads with solid, long-term earnings prospects.

Fears over loan surge

A report last month by Bank of Communications analysts, "China's Economic and Financial Outlook in 2009," forecast that lending would expand about 16 percent this year, or by 4.8 trillion (about US$703 billion) to 5 trillion yuan.

Similar figures were given last week by Premier Wen Jiabao, who told the annual legislative meeting that China would follow a proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy this year. As a result, Wen said, banks were likely to extend 5 trillion yuan in new loans this year.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said banks extended a monthly record of 1.6 trillion yuan in new loans in January, more than double the figure of 803.6 billion yuan a year earlier.

The CBRC said loans grew by 456.1 billion yuan in November and 771.8 billion in December. The loan surge began not long after China announced a two-year, 4-trillion-yuan stimulus plan. After that plan was announced in November, banks stepped up lending, experts said.

National figures haven't yet been announced for February, but Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's top lender, told the legislative meeting last week that his bank's new loans in February exceeded 100 billion yuan. He forecast that the bank's loan portfolio would grow 12 percent to 13 percent this year.

The lending wave has aroused concern that higher NPL rates might lie down the road, as the global turmoil increasingly affected China and its banks.

Wu Nianlu, vice president of the China International Finance Society, told Xinhua Monday that although the overall condition of the Chinese banking sector was healthy, "we should also be alert to the banking sector's development and potential risks in the near future.

"If economic growth slows, the risk of new NPLs would rise," he added.

Ready for risk

However, Liu Mingkang, head of the CBRC, has played down fears of a new NPL crisis.

Although the financial crisis had hit the global banking sector hard, "its impact on China's banking system is limited and the risks are under control," he told a press conference last month to discuss the January loan figures.

Subsequently, in an interview during the legislative session, Liu said: "There has been no data to date showing that the asset quality of Chinese banks was declining."

Other banking analysts have given similar assurances.

Cao Fengqi, director of the Research Center for Finance and Securities of Peking University, told Xinhua that shareholding reforms and improved risk controls that have been put into place since 2003 had helped Chinese banks improve their capital adequacy ratio (CAR) and competitiveness.

The CBRC imposes an 8 percent level for CAR, a measurement to assess a bank's capital relative to its risk. The CAR level was originally set under the Basel Accords through the Bank for International Settlements, and it is imposed in each country by local regulatory authorities.

The average CAR of Chinese banks surpassed 8 percent for the first time in 2007.

The CAR for the whole banking sector in 2008 hasn't yet been released. But as of the end of September, the CARs of ICBC, the Bank of China (BOC) and China Construction Bank (CCB) stood at 12.62 percent, 13.89 percent and 12.1 percent respectively. By way of comparison, the CAR of US-based Wells Fargo Bank was 11.88 percent at the end of 2008, according to Zhang Jixiu, an analyst with domestic Bohai Securities.

Shareholding reforems, NPL controls

In 2003, China launched shareholding reforms for state-owned banks, a process intended to transform them from wholly state-owned entities into publicly traded companies with the government as controlling shareholder.

The country's top three lenders -- ICBC, CCB and BOC -- were listed in the domestic and Hong Kong stock markets. Shareholding reforms at the Agricultural Bank of China are under way.

"The shareholding reforms have put more competitive pressure on 'the big four' state-owned banks and helped domestic banks improve their asset quality, management and risk controls," Cao said.

Total assets of Chinese banks increased from 27.66 trillion yuan at the end of 2003 to 62.39 trillion yuan by the end of 2008, the CBRC said.

The experts interviewed by Xinhua said banks had also increased efforts to avoid NPLs since China adopted a moderately easy monetary policy and eased banks' loan curbs during the third quarter of 2008. Since September, China has reduced the banks' required reserve ratio four times.

The loan loss reserve adequacy ratio and provisioning coverage ratio of China's state-owned commercial banks reached 153 percent and 109.8 percent last year, 122.2 and 76.4 percentage points higher, respectively, than in 2007, according to CBRC figures.

The corresponding figures for China's publicly listed commercial banks rose to 198.5 percent and 169.6 percent in 2008, respectively, from 2007 levels of 170.2 pencent and 114.5 percent, CBRC figures showed.

These increases have left Chinese banks well-placed to cope with any increase in NPLs, the experts said.

And Chinese banks' NPLs have been been declining, they noted. The ratio fell to 2.45 percent at the end of December, down 3.71 percentage points from the end of 2007.

Positive changes in the sector were reflected in the banks' return on capital, which rose 0.4 percentage point in 2008 to 17.1 percent, Liu said.