Thursday, January 23, 2003
China's Agricultural Bank lays off 137,000 employees in 3 years
Agence France-Presse Beijing, January 23
The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) streamlined its banking system over the past three years by removing or merging over 17,000 inefficient business outlets and laying off 137,000 employees, it said on Thursday.
As the ABC streamlined and downsized, its operating profit increased considerably, reaching 11.27 billion yuan ($1.36 billion) in 2002, increasing 9.28 billion yuan over the previous year, a report on the official Xinhua news agency quoted bank officials saying.
ABC vice president Yang Mingsheng said the bank had made three big strides in the past three years.
In 2000 its regular business became profitable; in 2001 the bank turned losses to profits; and in 2002 its operating profits rose sharply to a pre-tax profit of 2.90 billion yuan while writing off bad debts of 8.37 billion yuan.
Yang said the bank's outstanding deposits increased from 1.59 trillion yuan in 1999 to 2.48 trillion yuan in 2002, while that of its loans increased from 1.26 trillion yuan to 1.89 trillion yuan during the same period. Last year the ratio of the bank's non-performing assets dropped by a further 4.72 percentage points of total assets, Yang said, adding that in 2003 it is expected to drop another four percentage points.
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