On October 29th, ICBC announced the operation result of the first three quarters ending September 30th, 2009. The profit after tax was RMB 100.544 billion according to the International Financial Reporting Standards, representing a year-on-year growth of 8.02%. Net profit of the third quarter was a 19.94% jump from the same period a year ago. Earnings per share had amounted to RMB 0.30. The strong momentum in profitability growth creates good return to the company shareholders. During the first three quarters, ICBC's annualized average return on assets was 1.25%, up 0.04 percentage points over the end of previous year. Weighted average return on equity reached 21.05%, up 1.62 percentage points from the period ending last year.

In 2009, ICBC continues meeting government's macro-control measures and financial supervisory requirements. The bank keeps lending to support the economic development and contributes her shares to "Rally and Jumpstart" the current economy. As of September 30, 2009, ICBC's RMB loan balance went to RMB 5.2062 trillion, or an increase of 21.7% to RMB 927.6 billion from the beginning of the year. More important is the ICBC's continuous efforts in strengthening its lending polices to stay intact with the fiscal and industry polices. Allocation of lending capital is also optimized so that adjustments on the bank's lending structure can be easily adapted and acted as catalyst to the optimization and upgrade of the industry structure. As a result, the bank strives to improve the quality of lending in supporting the economy. In targeting lending to worthy recipients, ICBC actively supports the national mega projects, high-grade industries and key enterprises that are in line with national industry polices. More priority is given to enterprises in railway, power grid and nuclear power. In the period just before, the key leading enterprises hammered by the financial crisis and floundering economy were in temporal financial distress. ICBC provided funding in many ways to help many of them passing over the crisis by emphasizing on the company prospect and risk control before lending. ICBC gave full trade finance supports to those commercial enterprises who were shortage of capital for import or export of merchandizes during this temporary difficult period. Hence, another RMB 148.2 billion of such financing was added to ICBC's loan book during the first three quarters of 2009, or 121% increase over the figure in the beginning of the year. In line with the State policy, ICBC focused to gather its speed in providing improved banking services to small-and-medium enterprises (SME). Within the whole bank, RMB 493.05 billion of new financing facility was provided to SME in the first three quarters of this year, or an increase of 27.07%. ICBC also embraced innovation in consumer lending products and services in order to fully meet the reasonable demand, fuelling an increase of RMB 263.7 billion in all types of personal loans during the first three quarters of this year, or up 31.8% from the period ending last year. 

While following a policy of reasonable lending, ICBC searches for safer play to its asset quality by taking all steps to strengthen its credit vetting and risk management. In the third quarter, both the absolute amount and ratio of non-performing loans have declined. By the end of September, balance of non-performing loans was RMB 11 billion less than the closing balance of last year, down 0.61 percentage points to a NPL rate of 1.68%. Provision coverage rate rose to a tune of 148.37%, or 18.22% jump from the period ending last year. The result clearly demonstrates ICBC is well-positioned to counter risks.

With a strong customer base, highly-efficient distribution network and diversified product structures, ICBC leverages the advantage towards further development in products and services. The immense technological efforts aggressively diversify the revenue structure and push all intermediary services to a new height as varied as investment banking, e-banking, bank card and wealth management, which become the major profit source in strategic corrections to business structure, as well as an important carrier for core competitiveness. For the first three quarters of this year, ICBC realized a net income from banking charges and commission fees to RMB 41.1 billion, or a year-on-year growth of 18.7%, representing 18.2% of the total business revenues and 3.3 percentage points higher when compared to the same period last year. Investment banking service and bank card service registered growth of 44.7% and 36.1% to RMB 9.725 billion and RMB 6.931 billion respectively when compared with the corresponding period of last year. While the income from wealth management services was RMB 11.56 billion with earnings from corporate wealth management service notched up to a staggering increase of 53.4%.   
 
Meanwhile, by its steady progress in integrated and internationalized operations, ICBC is well-placed for its sustainable growth by improving its capacity of offering services across different markets and throughout the world. In September this year, ICBC is the first commercial bank in the country to set up a Precious Metal Department to be run and managed by professional teams engaging in business related to precious metals such as gold. ICBC has been successful in expanding its presence to Southeast Asia market, a region with close trade and economic relationship with China. Recently, ICBC and Bangkok Bank reached an agreement on the sale and purchase of equity shares with conditions precedent. ICBC will buy Bangkok Bank's 19.26% stock in ACL Bank. The transfer by Bangkok Bank of its share in ACL Bank to ICBC under the agreement will be completed as part of the tender offer by ICBC to all shareholders of ACL. If the acquisition goes through, ICBC may be able to acquire up to 100% shareholding of ACL Bank.

Led by its consistent improvement in financial strength and core competitiveness, ICBC marches to its own tune to become the country's standout bank. By the end of September, ICBC remains as the top bank in the world by profitability, market capitalization and number of deposit customers. After going public for three years, ICBC enters the era of "full circulation" when 236 billion of non-negotiable IPO shares held by initial shareholders were allowed to be freely traded in the market on October 27th, 2009. ICBC is now the No.1 quoted company in A-share market in terms of capital stock in circulation.