NPL ratio 1.74% at end of March

Chinese commercial banks’ non-performing loan ratio stood at 1.74 percent at the end of March, unchanged from the end of 2016, the country’s banking regulator said on Wednesday. Total commercial bank NPLs amounted to 1.58 trillion yuan ($228.9 billion), up from 1.51 trillion yuan at end-2016, China Banking Regulatory Commission data showed. Banks’ core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 10.79 percent at the end of March, up from 10.75 a quarter earlier. ery’s owner, the state-run oil giant PetroVietnam, shares of the country’s largest oil refinery will be officially offered to the public by the end of this year. The privatization is set to mobilize capital for strategic projects in the future, improving transparency and shareholders’ benefits, PVN said on Tuesday. In the first quarter of 2017, the Dung Quat Oil Refinery earned some $80.4 million in after-tax profit, achieving 30 percent of its annual target. The Dung Quat Oil Refinery went into operation in 2009 with designed capacity of 6.5 million tons of crude oil annually or 130,500 barrels per day. engineering and electronic industry plant to be built by Japanese company MinebeaMitsumi has started in Kosice, eastern Slovakia, local media reported. For this plant, MinebeaMitsumi reportedly will invest at least 60 million euros ($65.9 million) and provide jobs to 1,100 people. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has praised the company’s decision to invest in underdeveloped eastern Slovakia. “Apart from established sectors such as steel production and IT, this region is now getting standard industrial production, which is so typical for Slovakia. From this perspective, Slovakia is the most industrialized country in the EU when it comes to the share of industry in GDP,” Fico said.