China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the country's big four state-owned commercial banks, said on Monday that its net profits for 2006 had risen 18 percent from the previous year to 46.3 billion yuan (6.01 billion U.S. dollars).

CCB's total assets reached 5.5 trillion yuan at the end of 2006,up18.8 percent, with a capital adequacy ratio of 12.1 percent.

The non-performing loan ratio was 3.29 percent at the end of 2006, 0.55 percentage points lower than that at the end of 2005.

The bank's earnings per share were 0.21 yuan, compared with 0.24 yuan in 2005, with a return on average assets of 0.92 percent and a return on average equity of 15 percent.

A cash dividend of 0.092 yuan per share has been recommended by the bank's board of directors.

Over the last year the bank has been expanding its retail banking services, fee-based services, small-sized corporate business and overseas operations in order to improve its assets structure.

"While we maintained a steady growth in our traditional core business, namely property lending, we also expanded our retail, international, treasury and wealth management businesses," said Zhang Jianguo, the bank's president.

The Hong Kong-listed bank, also the country's biggest property lender, recorded a 17.8 percent rise in its operating income to reach 151.6 billion yuan in 2006.

The bank also saw its income from fees and commissions rise 60.5 percent to 13.6 billion yuan in 2006, and its ratio of income from this sector to the bank's total income rose to 8.95 percent, up 2.38 percentage points year on year.

With the bank's successful acquisition of Bank of America (Asia) Limited in 2006, the bank doubled its business scale in Hong Kong, holding the ninth highest in terms of the total amount of customer loans.

The bank also said on Monday it planned to cooperate with the Bank of America in the credit card business, which might involve "the creation of a joint venture".

Bank of America Corp., holds an 8.52 percent stake in the China Construction Bank.