China Construction Bank (CCB) won Best Domestic Bank in China 2006 granted by the Asset Triple A on November 13, 2006. This is the second time for CCB to win this award after 2005. In addition, thanks to the successful IPO of CCB in October of 2005 with $9.2 billion raised, CCB also was awarded as Best Deal for 12 months from September 30 of 2005 to this-year September 30.

President of CCB Zhang Jianguo said,” Best Domestic Bank award shows CCB’s excellent performance in the first half year of 2006. We will continue to improve our corporate governance, enhance business development, and carry out our overseas development strategy step by step, to achieve our goal of becoming a world-class commercial bank.”

CCB is the first of the big four state-owned commercial banks to get listed in the overseas market last year. At that time, it renewed several records in the international capital market, including the world's largest IPO in five years, the largest ever from Asia ex-Japan and the largest among China’s enterprises. It is a landmark in CCB’s development history and also a significant achievement in the process of China’s reform of financial system.

After its IPO, CCB continued to strengthen its risk management and internal controls, improve its service quality, and speed up products innovation, thus achieving stable business growth and further improvement in asset quality. In the first half of 2006, profit before tax reached RMB 32.8 billion, up 3.4% over the same period last year. As CCB continued to improve risk management practices and make timely adjustments to its lending criteria, steady improvement was achieved in the credit asset quality, with the non-performing loan ratio decreased to 3.51% as of June 30 compared with 3.84% at the end of last year. In the meantime, CCB also tired its best to control cost, with the cost to income ratio down to 41.6% for the first half of this year from 45.1% at the end of 2005 and 46.9% at the end of 2004.

The Asset, the most respected monthly finance magazine in Asia and Hong Kong, is now the largest circulated English finance magazine to global companies, investment banks and commercial banks, securities houses, financial institutions and senior management. This year is the seventh anniversary for The Asset Triple A Awards, which conducted annually in recognition of performance excellence in the financial services industry over the past 12 months, are based on both quantitative and qualitative factors that contribute to a point-score called the Asset Scoring Quotient (TASQ).

CCB’s Profile:

China Construction Bank Corporation (CCB, Stock Code:939) was successfully listed on the main board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited on 27 October 2005, the first public listing of China’s four largest state-owned commercial banks in the overseas market. CCB provides a comprehensive range of commercial banking products and services, and its principal business activities consist of corporate banking, personal banking and treasury operations. CCB is among the market leaders in China in a number of products and services: the second largest lender of infrastructure loans; one of major lenders in terms of residential mortgage products; and the second largest issuer of bank cards. CCB has an extensive customer base, with the network of 14 thousand branch outlets throughout the whole country. Customers can access CCB’s services through various channels such as wealth management centers, electronic banking, and self-service banking centers. CCB has always been the leader in terms of comprehensive competitiveness, marketing and promotion, risk management and control and profitability compared with other Chinese banks. On August 24, CCB and Bank of America Corporation signed the agreement that announced the 100%-equity acquisition of Bank of America (Asia), the wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America in Hong Kong. CCB was named by The Banker magazine as the “Bank of the Year” in China in 2005. According to The Banker magazine, CCB was rated 11th among Top 1000 World Banks and ranked the No. 1 on the list of top 100 China’s bank. According to the Hong Kong-based financial journal, Asiaweek, CCB was rated 7th among Top 300 Asian Banks released, and rewarded as the highest net interest income and net profit, and the “most profitable bank in Asia”.  And CCB also was named by FinanceAsia of Hong Kong as Best Managed Company, Best Commitment to Strong Dividends and Best Corporate Governance.