China Minsheng Banking Corp., one of the country's 10 listed commercial banks, has reported net profits up 47 percent year-on-year to 1.11 billion yuan (US$144.2 million) in the first quarter of the year.

The bank's earnings per share stood at 0.11 yuan, company sources said on Saturday.

From January to March, the Shanghai-listed bank earned 4.55 billion yuan (US$591 million) in interest, up 39 percent on the same period of last year. The growth rate was much higher than the year-earlier level of 12 percent.

At the end of March, the midsized lender had 5.74 billion yuan (US$746 million) of non-performing loans on its books, up 237 million yuan (US$31 million) from the level at the beginning of this year. But its NPL ratio stood at 1.21 percent, down 0.02 percentage points.

At the end of the first quarter, higher profitability helped boost China Minsheng Banking's gross assets 22 percent to 693 billion yuan (US$90 billion). Outstanding loans amounted to 474 billion yuan (US$62 billion), up 19.3 percent, and deposits 581 billion yuan (US$76 billion), up 17.8 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2007)