Recently, in the Asian Bank Competitive Ranking 2007 hosted by 21st Century Business Herald, while CCB won the “Best Investment Return Award”, its chairman Guo Shuqing was honoured with the “Banker of the Year 2007 Grand Award”.

Since its shareholding reform and listing, CCB has been adopting a customer-focussed operating concept in making timely adjustments in its asset-liability structure, spending major efforts in promoting strategic transformation and speeding up innovation of products and services.  Consequently, it has achieved quick yet prudent development in all areas of its business and succeeded in considerably raising its earning capability and market competitiveness.  As of the first half of 2007, among China’s four major state-owned commercial banks, CCB boasted the highest rate of increase of fee income, the highest interest spread and the best asset quality.  Its net profit was 334,255 million yuan, representing an increase of 47.50% over the same period in the previous year.  With its earnings at RMB 0.15 per share; its annualised return on average assets at 1.18%; its annualised return on average equity at 20.88%; and its net interest margin at 3.11%, CCB has continued to beat industrial averages in China.  From 2004 to 2006, the compound average annual growth rate of its net interest income was 17.6% while the compound average annual growth rate of its net fee income was 44.8%, and the rates of growth of its various operating income and profits were higher then other major banks.  Meanwhile, its risk control capability had increased continually and its asset quality had improved incessantly, so much so that, as at the end of September 2007, its non-performing loan rate remained the lowest among China's four major banks at 2.85%.  CCB’s level of return on investment and profitability are highly acclaimed in the international capital market and it has been lauded as the “Most Profitable Bank in Asia”.

When CCB chairman Guo Shuqing was presented with the Banker of the Year 2007 grand award, the ranking academic committee pointed out that Mr. Guo was one of the key participants involved in designing China’s overall reform programme in the early days.  As well, he had many years of working experience at the local government level and had administered umpteen billions of foreign currency reserves.  Now that he is in charge of CCB, the bank has made substantial improvement in its management and service standards and is considered one of the most effective banks in inviting in foreign strategic investors.  The Banker of the Year Grand Award is therefore the highest commendation from the academic committee for his long-term contributions in the financial sector.

This is the second consecutive year in which 21st Century Business Herald hosts the Asian Bank Competitive Ranking programme.  This year, the ranking work is carried out by the Faculty of Business Administration of the Chinese University of Hong Kong together with Graduate Department of the People’s Bank of China.  The ranking academic committee has first devised an index system covering more than 10 areas such as earning, scale, market share, asset quality, asset liquidity, customer service, etc.  It has then interviewed more than a hundred senior officers in the Asian banking industry and has integrated subjective assessments with objective assessments to arrive at the rankings in this year’s Asian bank competitiveness.