Overseas assets of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) reached 43 billion US dollars by the end of June, up 22 percent, or 7.8 billion US dollars, from the end of 2007, an ICBC spokesman said on Tuesday.

He said the rise in ICBC's overseas assets largely resulted from a deal finished in March with South Africa's Standard Bank.

ICBC, China's largest commercial bank, announced in March that it had taken a 20-percent stake in Standard Bank, the largest commercial bank in Africa, for 5.46 billion US dollars.

The ICBC spokesman also attributed the fast growth in overseas assets to the opportunity brought about by the expansion of Chinese companies into overseas markets.

ICBC overseas institutions had provided an international settlement service for Chinese companies, involving a sum of 97.3 billion US dollars, up 49.7 percent from the same period last year. Of the total, international settlement on trade amounted to 23 billion US dollars, up by 96.5 percent.

The Chinese bank said its overseas institutions posted a profit of 240 million US dollars after deducting the provision for bad debt in the first half, up by 42 percent over the same period last year.

The non-performing loans ratio of its overseas institutions was 0.19 percent, down 0.15 percentage points from early this year.

The Standard Bank posted a half yearly profit of almost 7.4 billion South African Rand (958 million US dollars), up 16 percent over the first half last year, according to the ICBC.

The Chinese bank received a dividend of 588 million South African Rand (37.3 million US dollars) from the Standard Bank in the first half.

The ICBC has 126 overseas branches in 15 countries and regions.

(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2008)