China’s banking and insurance regulator said on Wednesday that the sector’s bad loan ratio is 2.04%, and estimated it will continue to rise in the second quarter but not at a fast pace, reported Reuters.
Loan defaults, repayment delays, and bad loans all rose in the first quarter as the coronavirus outbreak triggered unprecedented economic challenges, Huang Hong, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), told a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
Huang said that banking sector extended RMB 2.5 trillion ($352.87 billion) in new credit support to firms, shops and individual businesses in the first quarter, twice as much as in the same period last year. The first-quarter insurance payout reached RMB 301.9 billion this year, Huang added.