China's big four banks extended about 136 billion yuan (us$20 billion) yuan-denominated new loans in October, up 23.6 percent from September's 110.4 billion yuan, the China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday.

The September total was the lowest amount so far this year for the big four, which include Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Agricultural Bank of China, the newspaper said.

Bank of China extended 44 billion yuan-denominated loans in October, the most of any of the four banks. That is a huge increase from its total of just 3 billion yuan in September, the newspaper said. The bank's chairman Xiao Gang said earlier that the bank would steadily increase new loans in the coming months.

China Construction Bank lent 36 billion yuan in October, down 8 billion yuan from 44 billion yuan in September. The bank has extended a total of about 879 billion yuan in new loans so far this year.

For its part, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China extended 33 billion yuan in new loans in October, compared with 30 billion yuan in the previous month. The bank's new loans have reached 960 billion yuan this year.

Finally, Agricultural Bank of China made 23 billion yuan in new loans after extending 30 billion yuan in September. It had made roughly 900 billion yuan in loans as of the end of October this year.

(chinadaily.com.cn November 3, 2009)