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On Wednesday, Huaxia Bank, China's first domestically listed shareholding bank, issued its annual report. A profitable year for the bank, 2006 saw Huaxia achieving net revenues of RMB 1.457 billion (around USD18.8 million), a 25.04% increase over the end of 2005. The bank is projected to increase its minimum capital volume to RMB 534 billion (nearly 68.93 billion USD), a 20% gain over the same period of 2006.

2006 saw a rapid growth in Huaxia's deposit operations, compared with a relatively smooth growth in loan businesses. Till the end of 2006, the deposit balances of Huaxia bank totaled RMB 371.92 billion (around 48 billion USD), up 18.18% over the end of 2006 All loan balances reached RMB 259.767 billon (around 33.531 billion USD), an 11.29% gain over the previous year.

The capital sufficiency rate of Huaxia hit 8.28% at the end of 2006 and the non-performing loan rate reached 2.73%, down 0.32% over 2005. The bank aims to downsize the rate of the non-performing loans to be within 2.5%.

Thanks to various proactive structural adjustments and initiatives, including the adjustment of the credit framework and the increase of low-risk business operations, Huaxia saw a rapid growth in several businesses sectors including individual housing mortgage loans and intermediary business revenues. In addition to this, the net revenues from handling charges and commission fees totaled RMB 30.4 million (around 3.92 million USD), a 53.41% surge over 2005.

In Nov.2005, Huaxia invited the Deutsche Bank to be its strategic partner and signed a long-term strategic cooperation deal with the bank. According to the agreement, the Deutsche Bank, a leading European banking giant will takes the majority of a 14 % stake to be one of Huaxia bank's top three shareholders.