SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The Chinese banking sector’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio was at 1.65% at the end of the third quarter, an official at the country’s financial regulator said on Friday.
Outstanding NPLs stood at 4 trillion yuan ($546.72 billion) at the end of third quarter, an increase of 183.2 billion yuan from the beginning of this year, Liu Zhiqing, an official at the National Administration of Financial Regulation (NFRA), said at a press conference.
Commercial banks’ capital adequacy ratio stood at 14.66% at the end of last quarter, said Liu.
The regulator will steadily promote reform of small and mid-sized banks to defuse financial risks, he said.
In addition, the NFRA will continue to promote the healthy and stable development of the property market and meet reasonable financing demand of developers.
Banks issued 2.4 trillion yuan property development loans in the first three quarters, said Liu. As of the end of the third quarter, the outstanding value of property development loans that banks extended repayment rose 183% year-on-year, he said.
($1 = 7.3164 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Ziyi Tang, Ryan Woo and Beijing newsroom; editing by Christina Fincher and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
