70 pct of banks link up with firms in FTZ

Almost 70 percent of the banks in Shanghai had a business relationship with companies in the Shanghai pilot free trade zone at the end of March, the local banking regulator said.

There are 84 banks in the city, including lenders in the zone, that have started doing business with the companies registered there, the Shanghai Office of the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement yesterday.

The local office said 10 Chinese banks have branches and 20 overseas lenders have sub-branches in the FTZ.

Lenders in the zone had combined outstanding loans of 65.4 billion yuan ($10.5 billion) at the end of March, while total assets totaled 120.6 billion yuan. Deposits of local and foreign currencies totaled 92.5 billion yuan.

Shanghai's outstanding loans rose 9.6 percent in the first quarter over the same period of last year to 4.63 trillion yuan.

Over 50 percent of new lending was personal loans and loans for manufacturing, leasing and commercial service sectors, totaling 102.7 billion yuan, the local regulator said.