BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhuanet) -- The State Council, or the Chinese government's cabinet, has authorized the joint-stock reform plan concerning the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), one of China's "big four" state-owned commercial banks.

    The State Council also authorized the next-step work plan for the reform of the Bank of China (BOC) and China Construction Bank (CCB), also "big four" banks. Last year, the State Council decided to allocate 45 billion US dollars of the country's foreign exchange reserves for a pilot joint-stock reform of the two banks.

    The ICBC, China's largest bank, witnessed an almost thirtyfold increase in its outstanding deposits from 1984 -- when it was inaugurated -- to 2004.

    Given the bank's huge size and its bad loan ratio of nearly 20 percent, the amount of capital infusion into ICBC would be phenomenal. The State Council has decided to allocate 15 billion US dollars of the country's foreign exchange for ICBC's reform.

    If it follows the example of the BOC and CCB, who received 22.5billion US dollars each, the ICBC would treat the external money as its new capital, while using its own, accumulated capital to cover loan losses.

    The ICBC, having made remarkable progress in internal control, managerial work and profit improvement, is "basically ready" for the joint-stock reform, according to the State Council.

    The State Council called on the BOC and CCB to continue improving their managerial structure, risk-control and internal control mechanism as well as punishing those responsible for non-performing loans. Enditem