SHANGHAI -(Dow Jones)- Bank of Communications Co. (3328.HK), China's fifth-largest lender by assets, said Wednesday its new lending in the fourth quarter will likely be similar to the level in the third quarter.
"The structure of the new loans has improved as we are rolling over low-yielding discounted bills into long term loans. The trend will continue in the fourth quarter," Qian Wenhui, executive vice president of BoCom, said at a news conference.
"The new loans we will issue in the last quarter of this year are expected to be equivalent to the third quarter," Qian said.
BoCom issued CNY77 billion worth of new loans in the third quarter, compared with CNY54 billion in the same period a year earlier.
However, its lending has slowed significantly from the explosive growth in the first half, when the bank's new loans totaled CNY400 billion as state-owned banks were enlisted to help finance Beijing's CNY4 trillion economic stimulus program.
-Rose Yu contributed to this article, Dow Jones Newswires; 8621 6120-1200; rose.yu@dowjones.com