Finance Minister Jin Renqing said there was no possibility of the authorities issuing bonds to recapitalise Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest bank by assets.

Asked whether the ministry would issue treasury bonds to recapitalise ICBC or Agricultural Bank of China, Jin said he had not heard of such an idea and that "there was also no such possibility".

China is widely expected to inject up to $50 billion into ICBC as a next step as they try and reform the nation's financial sector, believed to be laden with hundreds of billions of dollars of dud loans.

In late 2003, China tapped its swollen foreign exchange reserves to recapitalise the balance sheets of Bank of China and China Construction Bank following aggressive debt write-downs aimed at helping them transform into sound financial entities.

(CRI.com March 5, 2005)