CBRC official warns of long-term bad loan risk

A senior official at the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said domestic banks would suffer from risks from bad loans for "a long period of time," Bloomberg reported. Wang Huaqing, disciplinary commissioner of the CBRC said the nearly US$1.4 trillion in new loans issued by domestic banks this year were too heavily concentrated in the infrastructure, energy, real estate and transportation sectors. More than two-thirds of loans were issued to customers with credit lines of US$7.3 million or more, he said. A report by Fitch Rating released Tuesday said China’s banks needed to rebalance credit growth and capital adequacy following the burst of lending this year; Beijing has already indicated it intends to tighten capital adequacy rules to control the rate of lending.