Agricultural Bank of China 1Q Net Profit Up 1.9% on Year to CNY55.71 Billion

Agricultural Bank of China said Friday that its net profit in the first quarter rose 1.9% from a year earlier, thanks to growth in interest income.

China's third-largest lender by assets said profit for the three months ended March 31 was 55.71 billion yuan ($8.1 billion), up from 54.69 billion yuan a year earlier.

Net interest income rose 1.5% to 103.21 billion yuan, while net fee and commission income fell 11.9% to 25.47 billion yuan in the latest period, the bank said.

The bank reported 235.758 billion yuan of nonperforming loans at the end of March, up from 230.83 billion yuan at the end of 2016. The bank's bad-loan ratio declined to 2.33% at the end of March from 2.37% at the end of last year.

Write to Grace Zhu at grace.zhu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 28, 2017 05:22 ET (09:22 GMT)