Last year by drawing in shares from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), International Finance Corporation (IFC) as well as Hong Kong and Shanghai Commercial Bank, Shanghai Bank made an annual profit of about one billion yuan (US$120million).

Shanghai Bank president Fu Jianhua said that the bank plans to break through the 200 billion yuan barrier with its total assets of Chinese currency and hard currencies in 2005.

Bank staff are sparing no effort to improve the bank's overall competitiveness with the aim of becoming one of the top ten domestic commercial banks, said Fu.

Last year, the bank's Renminbi deposits reached 108.3 billion yuan (US$13billion), 26 percent more than that in 2000.

(eastday.com January 10, 2002)