BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of China, one of the nation's "big four" state-owned commercial banks, said on Tuesday its after-tax profit in the first half year rose 28.3 percent to 19.48 billion yuan.

    The BOC said its total assets climbed to 5.23 trillion yuan at the end of June, up 10.37 percent over the end of last year.

    The bank attributed the profit rise to surging loans and its net revenue from interest reached 54.8 billion yuan, up 12.32 percent. Interest revenue accounted for nearly 79 percent of the bank's total revenues.

    Outstanding loans totaled 4.84 trillion yuan at the end of June, up 8.07 percent over the end of last year. The bank's total deposits rose 9.4 percent to 4.04 trillion yuan.

    The BOC raised 11.2 billion U.S. dollars in May with an initial public offering in Hong Kong and another 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in July with a sale of shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

    Its share price on the Shanghai bourse had dropped from the opening price of 3.99 yuan on July 5 to 3.29 yuan Tuesday, close to its IPO rice of 3.08 yuan.

    Driven by surging loans, Chinese commercial banks reported great profit rises in the first half.

    Statistics from the central bank show China's commercial banks lent 2.34 trillion yuan in the first seven months using up 94 percent of their annual loan quota. Bank lending and the money supply kept growing in July despite government control efforts.

    The central bank has raised the deposit reserve ratio twice this year to rein excessive lending, with the latest announced on Aug. 15. It also raised the one-year benchmark interest rate as of Aug. 19. (one U.S. dollar= 7.96 yuan) Enditem