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BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China has expanded a pilot program to allow more domestic banks to issue securities backed by non-performing assets, Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News reported Tuesday.

Commercial banks including China Minsheng Bank, China Everbright Bank, and China CITIC Bank were among the institutions recently selected for the program, the newspaper reported.

China started a pilot program for non-performing asset securitization in 2016, allowing five state-owned banks and China Merchants Bank to repackage non-performing assets into securities to meet the demand of investors with different risk preferences.

By the end of 2016, 14 securitization products had been issued with a total value of 15.6 billion yuan (about 2.3 billion U.S. dollars), covering 46.1 billion yuan of underlying non-performing assets, Ji Zhihong, head of the financial market department of China's central bank, said in a report published Tuesday.