April 29 - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited ("ICBC", Stock Code SH: 601398, HK: 1398) announced its results for the first three months ending 31 March 2010. In accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards, ICBC's net profit in the first three months of 2010 was RMB 41.725 billion, up 18.24% over the same period last year. Earnings per share were RMB 0.12, up-rising by 9.09% over the same period in 2009.

The strong momentum in the first quarter this year, based on the 6.03% same period last year, reflects the powerful driver of stability and sustainable revenue growth in ICBC. Industry insiders believe that last year this period was a time when most of the banks in the country logging negative growth due to the impact of the worldwide financial crisis. Some of them experienced vertiginous 20% drop in profit. For ICBC to achieve over 6% of revenue growth despite these adverse conditions underscores that ICBC has weathered the volatility of the economy and came through them in stable progress. In 2010, the economic and business situations are improving. ICBC's over 18% of profitability growth underpins its strong fundamentals and strength to move forward.

With the pleasing performance, ICBC has continued to develop and fine-tune the framework and processes to enhance its overall risk management capability. Quality of assets is on the rise. In the first quarter of this year, ICBC bad loans "both go down". By the end of the first quarter, balance in non-performing loans was RMB 6.858 billion less than the end of last year. Non-performing loan rate slid 0.19 percentage point to 1.35% from the end of last year. Quality of loans stayed on an upward path. Meanwhile, ICBC shows its increased capability in risk aversion. Provision coverage rate reached 179.76%, a jump of 15.35 percentage points over the end of previous year.

Beginning from this year, ICBC fully embraces State's macro control policy and financial regulatory requirements by maintaining reasonable credit outlay in line with the economy,  loan demand in the market and own business development. In the first quarter, all RMB loans in domestic branches surged RMB 271.96 billion from the beginning of the year, or 5.12%. The growth was steady. ICBC backs the reasonable borrowing demand of the business entities while ensuring balanced lending growth for the year. In terms of lending to which customers, ICBC uses leveraged lending to support the economic structural change and upgrade. Two points are noticeable. First, subsequent funding to in-progress projects and follow-up projects, priority to key industry and development strategy in key areas and financing services to Chinese enterprises to "Go Global". Second, restricted lending to new projects and to companies of "high energy-consumption, high emission" and over-capacity industries. Besides, ICBC continues to expand its trade finance service and lend to small enterprises. A total of RMB 200.97 billion of trade facility has been arranged for domestic enterprises in the first quarter, accounting for an increase of RMB 74.48 billion year-on-year. By the end of the first quarter, balance of loans to small enterprises stood at RMB 345.61 billion, representing a surge of RMB 35.12 billion or 11.31% from the beginning of the year, 4.16 percentage points higher than the increase in total outstanding loans to corporate clients. ICBC loans provide a fillip to the recovery of the export trade, domestic consumption and small-and-medium enterprises.

In the first three months of this year, ICBC took measures to re-structure its liability portfolio. Deposit business maintained a healthy level of progress. Balance of total customer deposits in ICBC reached RMB 10.3 trillion, up RMB 561.34 billion or 5.74% from the end of the last year, and to RMB 11.5 trillion when the deposits from the other banks were included. ICBC secures its first place in the global ranking by having the largest deposit base. Meanwhile, ICBC offers a range of wealth management products to meet the diversified needs of the customers. ICBC boasts a balance sheet with strong liquidity, a ratio of 48.3% in loans to total asset and a loan-to-deposit ratio of 59.3%.

While maintaining the growth momentum in the primary businesses, ICBC reinforces its market dominance in most of the emerging areas through financial innovation and business re-orientation. Profit contribution from the intermediary business continues to rise. Revenue structures and business development were streamlined to reduce the impact of the economy fluctuation to a bank's profitability. In the first quarter, ICBC registered a net income of RMB 18.25 billion from banking charges and commission, a growth of 34.7% over the same period last year, accounting for 21% of the operational net income. This percentage was on par with the large banks outside China. By the end of the first quarter, ICBC issued more than 295 million bank cards, of which 54.805 million were credit cards, with nearly 2 793 000 new credit cards issued from the beginning of the year. Today, ICBC is the largest bank in the country in terms of the number of cards issued, transaction volume and credit card loans; Income from domestic investment banking business went to RMB 4.504 billion, or 28.78% growth when compared to same period last year. Assets under ICBC custody was nearly RMB 1.9 trillion in total net value, up RMB 92.226 billion or 5.11% from the beginning of the year. A turnover of RMB 64.2 trillion transactions was processed through electronic banking. ICBC scores 81.07 million personal internet banking customers and 2.05 million companies using corporate internet banking.

Meanwhile, ICBC gears up its efforts to diversify and compete in different markets. ICBC translates its success beyond domestic focus and moves from the traditional commercial banking to the integrated financial services. ICBC's acquisition of Bank of East Asia (Canada) was completed on January 28, 2010. On April 21, ICBC concluded the voluntary tender offer to Thailand ACL Bank and delivery of funds. As a result, ICBC purchased 97.24% of all outstanding shares of ACL Bank. On April 28, ICBC (Malaysia) Limited was open to business in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur. The two acquisitions and the new Malaysian Branch allow ICBC to gain foothold in Canada, Thailand and Malaysia with local banking licenses and customers, bringing lots of business opportunities to ICBC from the North America market and Southeast Asia market. This places ICBC on a solid footing to escalate its international presence with more overseas services and branches.