As shares of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) rose by 3.09 percent for a third consecutive day, investors were split on the real value of the largest blue chip in China's A-share market.

The rise on Wednesday followed a 10-percent daily limit rise on Monday and 5.76 percent on Tuesday. Closing at 5.68 yuan per share, the market value of the ICBC reached 243.23 billion US dollars.

The 10-percent rise on Monday made ICBC the third largest bank after City Bank, with a market value at 268 billion US dollars, followed by the Bank of America at 239.6 billion US dollars.

Analysts attributed the bullish stock to Sunday's news that the Chinese government was going to adopt a unified corporate tax of 25 percent for both local and foreign-funded firms.

Companies in China currently pay a nominal rate of 33 percent, but because of tax waivers and incentives - many initiated in the early 1980s to attract overseas capital - foreign firms actually pay about 15 percent.

The new accounting standards to be introduced from 2007 had boosted the ICBC's share price, said Gaoyuan, analyst with Everbright Securities Co. Ltd..

With the continuous appreciation of the RMB, the new accounting standards for foreign exchange business will have a positive influence on net profits and net assets of the banking sector, said Gao.

With the transformation to multi-financial businesses of China's banking sector and the role of the ICBC, the bank's shares still had plenty of room to rise despite the current high level, said She Minhua, a researcher of China Securities Co. Ltd..

In his report, She estimated that 6.27 yuan per share would be the reasonable price for ICBC's future rise.

China is becoming a major capital exporter. As China's biggest lender, the ICBC saw great potential in the appreciation of RMB and more overseas acquisitions by Chinese enterprises, said She.

An analysis by Guotai Junan Securities Co. Ltd. said the shares were of strategic value because of its widespread networks and growing inter-bank revenue.

With more than 18,000 branches, 2.5 million corporate customers and 150 million individual clients, the ICBC accounts for 15.4 percent of all loans in China.

An opposite opinion is that ICBC is overdrafting its future performance and the market is over optimistic.

A report by Guotai Junan estimates that ICBC's target price in a year will be 5.5 yuan per share and that of CITIC Securities 5.58 yuan per share.

Both estimates considered positive factors such as the unified corporate tax for both local and foreign-funded firms. However, the current share price has exceeded the two estimates for one year later.

A report by UBS said the current share prices for domestic listed banks were generally 2.5 times the estimated book value for2007. As the average price for global banks was 2.1 times of their estimated book value, the current price for domestic listed banks represented a 20 percent premium.

As one of the major driving forces, the ICBC boosted the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index to break 2,400 points for the first time in five years on Monday and on Wednesday hit 2536.29 points.

With 250.96 billion shares accounted into the Shanghai Composite Index, the ICBC has only 6.83 billion shares tradable in the A-share market, accounting for 2.7 percent of its total shares in the market.

Industrial insiders said that by boosting the A-share market by driving up share prices of major blue chips such as the ICBC, speculators are betting on the stock index futures to be launched at the beginning of next year.

Another opinion was that as the ICBC had 83.06 billion shares tradable in the H-share market, speculators were gaining profiting from the H-share market by boosting the price of ICBC in the A-share market where its market value is much less.

Since listing in the A-share market in Oct. 27, the ICBC has seen its share price rise by 73.2 percent so far.