The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC) said Sunday it had extended 31.8 billion yuan (US$3.9 billion), or over 20 percent of its new loans in 2005, to small firms.

A bank spokesman said China's biggest bank assets-wise this year attached "strategic importance" to the support for small enterprises, a dynamic sector that has, however, long been disregarded by state lenders.

Chinese commercial banks piled up a mountain of bad debts analysts say resulted from reckless lending to big, state-owned enterprises over the past decades.

The ICBC's loans for small firms recorded a non-performing loan ratio of merely 2 percent this year, the spokesman said.

Money loaned to such firms exceeded 5 billion yuan each in September, November and December.

The spokesman said the ICBC will push for the development of credit business benefiting small firms in the coming year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2005)