Economic Observer Online
August 16, 2012
By Chen Huijing (陈慧晶)
Translated by Zhang Dian
Original article: [Chinese]

The ratio of non-performing loans held by Chinese banks remained stable in the second quarter of this year according to data released by the country's banking regulator yesterday.

The non-performing loans of China's commercial banks rose by 18.2 billion yuan in the second quarter of 2012, taking the total amount of problem loans on the books of China's commercial banks to 456.4 billion yuan.

The resulting ratio of non-performing loans to total loans was 0.9 percent, the same as the ratio reported in the first quarter of the year.

Of the 18.3 billion yuan increase in bad loans, stimulus lending has risen RMB 15.9 billion yuan, and doubtful loans has risen 2.5 billion yuan while loan losses has shrinked 0.2 billion yuan.

Despite the NPL ratio remaining stable, we can see from the recently released annual reports of various listed commercial banks that the overrall size of bad loans is on the increase.

For example, according to the annual report of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (浦发银行), the bank's mid-term non-performing loans ballooned from 5.827 billion yuan to 7.688 billion yuan.