Efforts to speed up NPLs disposal
By Zhang Dingmin (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-02-24 15:15

The China Orient Asset Management Corporation on February 23 reported substantial progress in its work disposing of distressed loans last year, and vowed to further quicken the pace this year with new measures and an improved operating mechanism.

The company disposed of 43.3 billion yuan (US$5.2 billion) in non-performing assets last year, recovering 5.22 billion yuan (US$629 million) in cash, outstripping a 4 billion yuan (US$480 million) target set by the Ministry of Finance.

China Orient is one of four asset management companies set up in 1999 by the Chinese Government to recover the massive non-performing loans (NPLs) of the nation's four State-owned commercial banks.

The four companies, solely owned by the Ministry of Finance, took over a total of 1.4 trillion yuan (US$168 billion) worth of bad loans from the banks.

They disposed of an aggregate of 509.4 billion yuan (US$61 billion) of NPLs by the end of last year, and recovered 99.5 billion yuan (US$11.9 billion) in cash, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in January.

Of the total, China Orient disposed of 88.7 billion yuan (US$10.6 billion), retrieving 16.5 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) in cash.

The company said there was a significant improvement last year in the way it handled the distressed assets, with transfers and restructuring for creditors accounting for 54 per cent of the total assets being disposed of.

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