China's top banking regulator said on Tuesday that the application of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's biggest lender, has been approved.

The plan to go public by ICBC "has been officially approved", Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, told a mid-year work conference of the commission.

Last month, ICBC announced a net profit of 33.7 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion) for last year, an increase of 12 percent from the previous year.