Industrial and Commercial Bank of China yesterday provided evidence of the extraordinary recent expansion in Chinese bank lending when it revealed it had grown increased its loan book by 19 per cent in the first half of the year.
The world's largest bank by market value said it had inc-reased lending by Rmb864.5bn ($126.5bn) in the first half, an amount roughly equal to the annual gross domestic product of Peru or New Zealand.
ICBC reported a 3 per cent rise in net profit in the first half to Rmb66.42bn. But this came against a backdrop of falling profitability as state-controlled banks rushed to extend loans at Beijing's behest to infra-struc-ture and industrial pro-jects.
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