Feb. 2, 2007 (China Knowledge) – The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the last of China's Big Four State-owned lenders yet to be listed, has reported fewer bad loans last year.

The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) said Wednesday its non-performing loan (NPL) ratio dropped 2.73 percentage points from 2005 to 23.44% last year.

In 2006, RMB 4.2 billion of bad loans were written off, while the types of credit in RMB and other foreign currencies increased by RMB 308.6 billion.

To improve the capital adequacy ratio and to write off non-performing loans before listing, ABC would need a multi-billion-RMB capital injection.