According to the spokesman of the bank, the newly-formed joint-stock company would inherit from the original bank all the major banking businesses and related assets, while the state-owned groupwill manage the rest assets and debts.

The joint-stock company was also entitled to own the branches and to use the trademark, Internet domain names and phone numbers of consulting hotlines of the original bank.

The separation, the spokesman said, was an important decision to renovate the country's financial system and would favor the twoparts to develop in separate strategies toward respective goals inline with their different business characteristics.

"The joint-stock company, expected to fully obey international conventions and follow market demands, will utterly change its operation and management mechanisms, focus on commercial bank business and compete with advanced foreign and domestic private banks, in a bid to pursue the maximization of profits," he said.

Meanwhile, the separation would refresh the record of the bank's capital adequacy ratio and non-performing loan (NPL) ratio, which would help enhance the risk resistance and competitiveness of the joint-stock company.

The state-owned group, also shareholder of the new joint-stock company, would not involve directly in the latter's business, but would take charge of setting up a market-oriented operation and management system via mapping out clear development strategies, revealed the spokesman.

He said that the old deposit books and bank cards would remain validate and the preparation work for the separation would end in the following 90 days with daily business run normally.

CCB's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio remained the lowest amongChina's big four wholly state-owned banks -- standing at 8.77 percent by the end of March in compliance with the internationallyaccepted five-category loan classification system.

It's operating profits have also jumped 32.4 percent year-on-year to 15.97 billion yuan (1.9 billion US dollars) in the first quarter of the year.

At the end of last year the State Council, China's cabinet, injected a combined 45 billion dollars in foreign exchange reserveinto CCB and the Bank of China to replenish their capital. The latter has said it hopes to go public in 2005.

China is in the midst of overhauling its banks, especially the big four, to sharpen their competitive edge before it grants unrestricted market access to foreign banks by 2006 under a commitment to the World Trade Organization.