Distinguished investors, analysts, media friends, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome all of you to China Construction Bank's 2024 interim results announcement.

I'd like to thank you sincerely for your continued trust, interest and support to CCB. Today's results announcement has two venues in Beijing and Hong Kong, which are connected via video link.

We are also broadcasting live online for our shareholders and to the public. Joining us in Hong Kong today include Mr.

Zhang Yi, President of CCB; Mr. Tang Shuo, Deputy President of CCB.

Joining us in Beijing include Deputy President Mr. Ji Zhihong, Deputy President Miss Han Jing, and Deputy President Mr.

Lei Ming. We are also joined by our non-executive directors, representatives from independent directors, as well as the senior colleagues from the head office and also Hong Kong entities.

My name is [Li Jianjiang?] , Deputy President of CCB.

The interim results of 2024 of CCB were officially released to the public earlier today. We will begin this afternoon with opening remarks from Mr.

er Zhang Yi, followed by open Q&A session. Now we will invite President Zhang.

Distinguished investors, analysts, and media friends, good afternoon. Welcome all of you to CCB 2024 interim results announcement.

First, I would like to thank you sincerely for your trust, interest, and support to CCB over the time. Since this year, CCB stick to Chairman Xi's spirit of developing China and also executed the uh principles of the Party Congress and also the central government's conferences.

We also uphold the operation philosophies and risk management philosophies. We emphasized on three abilities: pursue steady growth, improve efficiency, and also stick to the high-quality development.

For the first half of 2024, the operation performance reached our expect- expectation with a steady growth and also scale economy and coordinated growth. The capital also has a very steady growth, the asset, AUM, also is at 30 a 30 trillion and also the liability side also increased healthily.

The operation also improved. We have an operating income of 426 billion.

Profit before provision is 328 billion, increased by 10.8 uh 48% and 13% YoY, respectively. Net profit, 171 billion, up 5.56%, increased by 1.88 percentage points uh by Q1.

NIM is 1.37%, ROA 0.74%, ROE 9.52%, capital adequacy ratio 19.42%. Cost-to-income twen- ratio 22.17%, continue to be industry-leading.

The structural optimization accelerates transformation momentum. The asset allocation is precise and efficient.

The gross loans to customers is 29.34 trillion. Financial investments, 13.99 trillion, increasing by 5.65 and 8.8 48%, respectively.

The green and technology-related loans continue to increase, and the loans are also very healthy. We have effective control of liability costs through expansion of low-cost settlement deposits, integration and optimization of the wealth management product products and deposits, and various other management measures.

The interest-bearing liabilities cost ratio is down by 30 basis points on YoY basis. Earnings sources also stands at 310 billion, up 8.46%.

We continue to seize opportunities of wealth management market. Non- net interest income also stands at 115 billion, up 16.31%, increased by 1.6 36 percentage points YoY.

The efficiency and quality of operation is also increased and strengthened. We maintain very disciplined control of general expenses, enhance financial support in customer marketing and technology operation.

Cost-to-income ratio fell by 1.55 percentage points. The risk management is robust and effective.

The NPL ratio is only 1.29%, provision coverage ratio is 8.69%. We have a very sufficiency ability against risk.

We also continue to enhance the balanced short- and long-term capital objectives by providing capital replan- replenishment. These performance results also laid a solid foundation for sharing our results with the shareholders.

We also emphasized on a dividend and we have accumulated the cash dividend at 52 billion for the first half, and we also suggest the cash dividend inter- interim cash dividend of 2.01 RMB yuan per 10 shares, including tax. The total dividend of is 52.582 billion.

Dividend payout ratio increased from 30% to 31%. These will be reviewed by the shareholders' meeting.

Now I would like to report the development plan for the second half. First, we will strengthen support for the real economy while enhancing quality and efficiency of financial service.

We emphasize on the five key priorities. Technology finance is also leading in the industry.

We will build the our management mechanism centering around different five aspects. We have the five-pronged technology finance framework.

We will also continue to optimize the technology precision and we have realized double-digit growth in technology lending. We also rely on various measures.

We have also issued 87 tranches of technology loans satisfying various demands for this technology industries at various stages. We also respond to the policy, regulator, and provide orderly equity financing services for emerging and future industries.

In terms of green finance, we also have optimized the green financing channel. The we have also green loan balance of 6.53 trillion, up 8.95%.

We underwrote 34 tranches of green non-financial bonds, totally 15 billion. We also issued green bonds overseas of $1 billion and offshore green RMB bonds of 3 billion RMB yuan.

We maintained MSCI AAA ESG rating. In terms of inclusive finance, we will also try to continue to optimize the support to small and micro enterprises.

We serve 3.82 million customers of micro and small enterprises. In terms of pension finance, the corporate pension accounts increased by 33%.

We also launched the wellness living platform covering various scenarios. We also enhance the AUM, especially the pillar-to AUM of CCB, it increased by point 10.7%, standing at 800 billion.

In terms of digital finance, we deployed AI across various scenarios covering marketing, customer service, investment advisory, operation, risk control, and corporate management, covering over 600 scenarios. We also enhanced the online platform development.

We have personal customers of 592 million and the e-CNY consumption value is also around 8 billion, and it also increased by 13% and 14.68%. We also emphasized on some key priorities optimizing the smart economy, the new infrastructure-related financial services.

We also refined the Shan Jian intelligent manufacturing and Shan Jian strong foundation initiatives up by the end of June. We also increased the manufacturing sector loan at 4 trillion RMB yuan, up 17.95%.

In terms of private enterprises, the loan reached 7.36 trillion, up 9.42%. We also actively supported major national regional development covering Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei region, Yangtze River, and GBA, etc.

The share on socially-related finance services also increased. We continue to enhance our support to the urban renewal initiatives.

We also support the domestic demand expansion and consumption growth, actively implement the interest subsidy policies. For the first half, we have issued 1.08 trillion of new loans to service sector.

In some key areas, the new loans also exceeded 33 billion. The consumption spending eligible for personal consumer loan interest subsidy policies exceeded 130 billion.

We also support residents' essential housing needs and diversified needs for better housing. Residential mortgage reached 5.92 trillion, issuance of residential mortgage is over 300 billion, keeping industry-leading position.

We also deepen the integration of financial services for consumer spending scenarios surrounding on the home life and auto life. We continue to enrich our supplying chain.

The personal consumer loan balance reached eight and 806 billion, up by 14.596%. Credit card loans is at 934 billion, and the livelihood-related consumption sectors also exceeded loans also exceeded 1 trillion, covering elderly care, cultural tourism, sports, healthcare, and education.

Facility disperse of more than 1.0 billion in government consumption subsidies. We also have a stronger support for high-level opening up serving the free-trade zone and free-trade port.

We also facilitate the cross-border quick loan and RMB scenarios. The international business loan balance reached 2 trillion, up 25 24.57%.

We also provided cross-border quick loans to the small and medium foreign trade enterprises of 53 billion. The loan balance to Belt and Road countries and regions reached 73 billion.

We also support development of Hainan Free Trade Port and Shanghai International Financial Center, support Hong Kong in consolidating its position as international financial center, and actively promote the development of offshore RMB market. Second, we also maintained a customer-centric approach with continued enhancement of comprehensive service capability.

We have further streamlined the four integration mechanism, continue to advance the financial banking. The underwriting volume of non-financial enterprise debt financing instrument reached 268 billion.

The M&A loan balance reached 287 billion. Equity investment business also advanced in an orderly manner.

The corporate and retail banking business is also enhancing their synergy. The social security cards and disbursement customers and the merchant transaction volume also continue to increase.

The AUM of payroll disbursement customers increased by 663.7 billion. Net increase of social security cards exceeded 3 million.

We have met the need of domestic and foreign currency, and domestic and foreign currency integrated accounts increased by 144,200 customers, and we have achieved double-digit growth in international settlement customers and international settlement volume. Cross-border RMB settlement volume reached 4.25 trillion.

Improved group-wide integration efficiency, overseas commercial banking institutions recorded net profit of 9.5 billion, up 21.87% year-on-year. In the first half, overseas branches have recorded net revenue of 9.5 billion, and subsidiaries recorded net profit of 18.2 billion, up 21.87 and 28.95%.

We have focused on three customer groups: government, enterprises, and personal customers. We have developed model projects for 12 key ecosystem clusters, including universities, hospitals, social security cards, etc.

We have seen an additional 792,900 corporate customers, an increase of over 5 million personal customers. Our products are better in meeting customer demand.

We have seized the opportunity of diversified wealth management. We focused on customers' asset allocation needs.

We offered investment advisory services, we can help them manage their wealth long term. Wealth management scale exceeded 5.3 trillion RMB.

Wealth management customers added 500 5.57 million. Private banking customers and AUM achieved double-digit growth.

Securities customers for the third-party security custody services of trading settlement funds exceeded 100 million. Asset under custody reached 25.45 trillion.

Thirdly, we strengthened risk and compliance management and further consolidated the foundation for sound development. We improved risk and internal control management system.

We focus on the overall risk system problems, we can establish a proactive and smart risk management system. We strengthened our policies, we can respond to the key businesses.

We strengthened the penetrative risk management across overseas institutions and subsidiaries. We have strengthened the review of differentiated risks, and we have conducted evaluation management for corporate customers.

We have seen higher quality in new loans. We optimized the asset quality management and NPL disposal mechanisms and broadened market-based disposal channels.

NPL is 1.29%, down by 0.02 percentage point, with key areas seeing controllable risks. We have adapted us ourselves to the rapid change of technology and risk profile, we can establish risk management platform.

We have developed AI agents for customer risk identification, structured risk analysis, and we strengthened the foundation for compliance management, and we have improved the core systems, including money laundering review and compliance review. Looking forward, we are positive on the fundamentals of Chinese economy, but we are very aware of the pressure and challenges in our operation.

We will try our best to do a good job in the following areas. We will closely follow national strategic priorities and foster new drivers of transformation and development, advance the five priorities, and seize the two key tasks and two renewals, support major projects under the 15th Five-Year Plan and development of the six networks.

We will fully support expansion of domestic demand, industrial upgrading, and growth of private, small, and micro businesses. We will strengthen our capability in cross-border capability, and we will enhance our promotion initiatives and enrich the bank-wide home living and auto living ecosystems and branch-specific consumption scenarios.

We will deepen inclusive livelihood finance to better meet residents' financial needs in housing, education, healthcare, and childcare. We will accelerate business model transformation and deepen integrated customer service capability.

We will strengthen integration across commercial and investment banking, and we will strengthen corporate retail banking, and we will work with governments and corporations in meeting the financial needs of their employees. We will seize the opportunities from domestic and foreign currency operations.

We will strengthen global group-wide collaboration, and embed integrated services throughout the customer journey. We will further deepen the ecosystems, industrial supply chains, industrial business customer service model, focus on core supply chain anchor enterprises, and upstream and downstream down supply chain participants, strengthen ecosystem integration and ecosystem-based operations, deeply advance the AI initiatives, accelerate digital and intelligent transformation, and build an enterprise-level omnichannel service and operation system.

We will strengthen operational synergies and enhance value creation. Asset business: Maintain a balance among scale, pricing, and risk.

We will align loan growth with monetary policy, and optimize funding, duration, and bond investment returns. Liability business: We will maintain alignment among scale, pricing, and quality, further strengthen funding stability initiatives.

Intermediary business: We will maintain category-specific policies across the integration of intelligence, technology, equity, debt financing. We will seize the opportunities from the capital market and consumption market, and we will enhance businesses lines, including wealth management, consumer finance, settlement, payment, investment banks, etc.

We will safeguard the bottom line, thinking of the worst scenario, and strengthen risk and compliance management. We will strengthen our capability in mitigate financial risks, and we will focus on key areas and effectively identify and mitigate potential risks, enhance integrated online and offline risk control capabilities.

We will continue to improve the compliance management framework, and promote the deep integration of consumer protection across entire business processes, all the business segments can operate in a stable and regulated way. Ladies and gentlemen, CCB comes from the background of construction.

This year marks the first year in the 15th Five-Year period. We will integrate our development as a company with the modernization of China, we will return to customers with high-quality financial services, and let's work together for a robust and more sustainable future.

Thank you.

Thank you, President Zhang. Now, we will open the floor for questions.

We will alternate questions between Hong Kong and Beijing to allow more analysts and media journalists to ask questions. Please ask only one question each time, and please identify yourself before asking a question.

Question one comes from Hong Kong. Let's take a question from the gentleman in the third row on the left.

Thank you, management, for the opportunity. From Morgan Stanley, I have a question regarding operational revenue.

Your operational revenue and profit have recorded very good momentum. What are the drivers behind this robust performance?

Looking forward, what's your expectation for the operational revenue and profit going forward in this year?

President Zhang will take that question.

Thank you, Mr. Xu.

CCB seized the opportunity of the 15th Five-Year Plan, and we seized the opportunity in high-quality integration of business groups. We have seen some achievements in the first half in high-quality development in net profit and net profit attributable to shareholders, up 5.56 and 4.62% year-on-year, respectively, and higher than the first quarter by 1.8 and 1.09 percentage point.

Operational revenue is up 10.48%. It has been two-digit growth for two consecutive quarters.

We have more diversified source of revenue. Net interest income and non-interest income have become our two drivers.

Our core indicators are very balanced. ROE, ROA, NIM, cost cost-revenue ratio, and capital adequacy ratio have all kept a very good level.

There are five reasons. First, we optimize the allocation of asset and liability.

We have implemented very proactive and flexible asset liability allocation strategy. With 8.46% growth in net interest income, 033 percentage points higher than the first quarter, we have seen higher volume, higher prices, and more stable structure.

Interest-bearing asset have grown stably. We have supported the real economy.

Interest-bearing assets have surpassed 45 trillion in daily balance. As for price, we have seen a higher NIM.

In the first half, NIM was 1.37%, 1 and 3 basis points earlier, respectively, than the first quarter and whole year of last year. The new loans have seen very stable interest rates.

On the liability side, balance between volume and price has been observed. We have seen higher percentage in high-yield assets.

We have optimized asset portfolio. Loan and financial investments have seen higher percentage.

We focused on new productive forces and integration of finance and governance. Personal consumption, personal operational loans have realized two-digit growth.

We optimized the loop of corporate funds. Our demand demand deposit has seen a very good level in its percentage.

We have been very flexible in adapting asset portfolio. Secondly, we promoted the transformation of revenue structure with high growth in non-interest income.

We have expanded the source of revenue. Non-interest, net non-interest income is up by 16.31% for two reasons.

Commission fees are stable. We seized the opportunity of wealth management, asset management, we can improve on customer loyalty with professional services.

Funds, custody, CTS, this business lines had realized a two-digit growth. We seized the opportunity of consumer markets.

Third-party payment and credit cards have seen stable progress. We increased efficiency of settlement services.

On the other hand, other non-interest income have maintained good momentum. That is attributed to our efforts in asset allocation and improvement in transaction capabilities.

Equity investment has been performing very well as well. Thirdly, operational management, cost expenses, we have reduced costs and improved efficiency.

We give priority to technology and customer marketing. We use the technology and digital tools for corporate operation, and we have strengthened evaluation of expenses.

Cost-income structure is at 22.17%, down by 1.55 percentage points. We also have very strict risk control and the quality of assets is very steady.

We have applied a very prudent uh operation philosophy and principles to uh uh to uh select the customers in a more uh prudent way. We also improved the risk control system.

The NPL ratio uh is 1.26 29%, down by 0.02 percentage points. Provision coverage rate, 238%, up by 5.54 percentage points.

Our our ability of risk control continued to be improved. Fifth, we emphasize on customer-centered operation mechanism.

We continue to cover the whole life cycle of customer service, improve the financial service system, and we have kept very good momentum. The RMB settlement accounts is standing at 18.91 million, increased by 1.02 million uh by compared with the end of last year.

The personal clients AUM also exceeded 24 trillion, up by 1 trillion. It has also kept the double-digit growth.

The retail mobile banking also um increased by 15% in terms of their activity ratio. The international business loan also has a realized a growth of over 20%.

All these have laid a solid foundation for our operation in the second half. Looking ahead, we will continue to emphasize on the five chapters.

Optimize technology finance service system, improve investment banking, wealth management, and financial markets transaction ability, enhance the differentiate service ability, also improve the our opening-up of high-quality service. On the other hand, we should also pursue sustainable growth.

We should also upheld the right philosophy and balance our development. We also will improve the uh net interest income to a better level, and also realize steady growth of non-net interest income.

We will continue to improve the linear management and our operation ability, and continue to enhance the risk identification and alarming system. Thank you.

Thank you, President Zhang. Now I would like to invite question from Beijing.

The lady from the third row on the left.

Thank you for the opportunity to raise question. I'm from China Security Daily.

I'm Shi Shuyu. We have also seen that for the first half of CCB, the loan also maintained very steady growth.

I want to ask about the loan loan disbursement um aspects and now the financing structure is changing, I want to know about the loan strategy of CCB in the future.

I would like to invite Miss Han Jing, our VP in Beijing to answer.

About the loan disbursement, President Zhang has also given very detailed introduction in his overall speech in the beginning, and he has also summarized the key parts in the first question. Now I would like to further supplement some details.

For the first half, it's very steady and there are two optimization. For the one steady, the total volume is increasing steadily.

By the end of June, the loan scale stands at 29 trillion, up by 1.5 trillion with an increase level of 5.65%. Loan also takes up 60% of our asset.

The growth of loan is also serving the real economy. On the same in the same time, it is also laying a very solid foundation for the increase of our revenue and inc- income.

For the optimization, the overall volume is quite optimal. Our balance of customer the retail banking and also corporate banking is very balanced.

The corporate loan is over 20 trillion, up by 1.54 trillion compared with last year, with up by 8.2%. The retail loan also is standing at 9.19 trillion, taking up 31.31%, over 1/3 corporate, 1/3 private.

This is quite optimal. For the second optimization, we also invest in consumption, investment, and the premium sectors.

What do we mean by that? First, we emphasize on the five-pronged aspects.

The loan is also increasing faster than other aspects. For example, tech finance, we are also determined to be the leading bank to invest in tech finance.

We also have a three-system promotion. We have increased, we have realized double-digit growth in technology-related loan.

We also invest in premium sectors. For example, the advanced manufacturing sectors and also other sectors related to the modern industry system development.

We have also implemented the comprehensive service strategy. The results are very obvious.

Our loan to the manufacturing sectors exceeded 4 trillion up with a growth rate of 17.95%. The modern service industry and the modern infrastructure loans also have new changes.

We also invest in the consumption, for the consumption-related loans, we also are keeping the industry-leading position. We also stick to high-quality opening up.

We have the Shan Jian cross-border comprehensive financial service platform. For the first half, the trade financing and cross-border financing also contributed over 1/5 of the increment of the loans for the whole bank.

You also mentioned the direct financing structure is also changing. Actually, that's the results of our economic economic structure transformation.

It is also the results of the deepened reform of supply chain in the finance business. Next, we will also follow the trend and we will target at the various demands of the sectors like globalization and more smart-related services.

We also emphasize on the integration of investment and also the foreign and local currency integration of the group. We will also diversify financing channels at different in different manners.

We will also construct the modern industry system, and we will also try to coordinate with the changing financial markets, and we emphasize on the characteristics of CCB. We will also orient towards the 15th Five-Year Plan, including the six networks, the key areas, and key projects.

We will have also responded to a series of increment policies, continue to guarantee the sustained and robust growth of loan disbursement. In the same time, we will also stick to the operation principle principle, emphasizing on the balanced development of volume and prices on the basis of a prudent risk control, so that we can improve the high-quality development.

Thank you.

Now I would like to invite question from Hong Kong. The lady from the fourth row on the right.

Thank you. I'm from Phoenix TV.

I'm Wang Shu. We have seen that CCB has a very remarkable results in terms of NIM.

Can you further elaborate on that? Apart from the external market factors, what you have done to differentiate yourself and also judge the overall momentum?

I would like to invite President Zhang to answer the question.

Thank you, Miss Wang, for your question. For the first half, the NIM is 1.37%.

It has also increased by 3 basis points compared with on a YoY basis. The quarter two, it also increased by 1.38%.

On the row, our NIM level is also leading in our industry. We have realized the comprehensive balance of volume, price, and also structure.

That is a result of our economic development momentum and various other external factors. It is a result of our active management internally.

We stick to value creation. We dynamically and flexibly enhance the balanced management of asset and liabilities.

We also take differentiated measures to improve the our NIM level. We also have the two integration and one integration strategy.

First, we optimize the allocation of the major asset class. We based on the market trends, we dynamically adjust the asset allocation.

For the core asset growth, the in- growth is exceeding the growth of the group assets by 2.8 percentage points. The balance is standing at 91.6%.

Just now, Miss Han mentioned that the loan takes up over 60% of our assets, with these two, it takes up 91.9% combined. Second is to optimize the credit and loan maturity structure.

By the end of June, for the domestic loans, the long- and mid-, long-term loan takes up 71%. It increased by 0.05 percentage points.

Third, we improve the comprehensive pricing ability. We try to determine the loan interest rate based on the comprehensive pricing service and and also the transaction.

On the liability side, we also implement a strategy of control the high-risk. We emphasize on low-cost settlement capital management, improve the settlement network optimization and all the new platform development.

We also enhance the physical local bonds capital connection. We try to leverage on on the major capital to improve the high-quality capital pool.

For the first half, the savings deposits balance increased by 5 54 billion yuan. Also have a YoY increase of 38 billion yuan.

We Secondly, we also connect the time deposit capital, improve the optimal circulation of this capital. We also provided other sales of the other wealth management products.

For the first half, the domestic time deposit interest paying payout rate is 1.66%, down by 34 percentage points on YoY basis. Third, we also actively and effectively control the high-cost liability.

The interest rate of the other financial organizations' deposits decreased by 19 percentage points. For the whole year, we are confident to optimize our active management of these aspects.

First, we will balance the total volume, will fully integrate into the modern industry system, adapt to the new changes of the market environment and also client needs. We will continue to unlock the efficiency of operation for stable growth of NIM.

Secondly, stable pace. We will make sure that our assets are aligned with market competition.

We will take a balanced approach in credit and bond markets. The key is to make sure that cash management and payroll services, settlement fund growth, we will optimize the structure.

We will focus on the five financial priorities, infrastructure, manufacturing industry, among other fundamental sectors. We will flexibly explore the allocation of financial investment vehicles.

We will try our best to increase the percentage of high-yield assets. Fourthly, liability.

We will focus on lowering cost and optimizing structure. Agile management is key.

We will make sure that we flexibly adjust duration, pace, and categories of liabilities, the interest-bearing assets will be placed at a reasonable level.

We will take another question from Beijing.

Thank you for the opportunity. From CICC, I have a question regarding financial investment.

In the first half, we've seen very good growth in bond investment. Can you please talk about bond investment overall?

Now, the market is in a low interest rate environment, going forward, how will you take an active approach in this regard?

Thank you. Mr.

Ji from Beijing will take the question.

Thank you for the question. In 2024, we are faced with lower growth in market rates and lower credit spread, but we have seen good momentum in the business segments.

We have aligned ourselves with the change in social financing structure, we can coordinate investment transaction and customer services. This will lay a good foundation for strengthening profitability.

There are a few aspects. Number one, we strengthened investment allocation enabling the development of the real economy.

On the one hand, with national economic fiscal policies, we focus on government investment, we enhance the security, liquidity, and efficiency of these assets. In the first half, we added over 1 trillion of investment in government bonds.

Given the increasing demand from corporations, we increased the allocation of credit bonds primarily in advanced manufacturing, technology innovation, green, low-carbon, and pension industry. This is especially obvious in technology and innovation.

Secondly, we've taken an active approach in portfolio management, we can take our advantage of transaction operations. CCB pays higher importance to bond portfolio.

We focus on coupon rate and strengthen transaction in categories, types of bonds, duration, and issuance. We will try our best to take advantage of it.

In the first half, there were three features. Number one, we seized good time opportunities.

In the first half, when the interest rates were on the raise, we implemented long-term allocation of mid- to long-term duration bonds. Secondly, we seized the opportunity of market volatilities in Q2, when the prices were high.

Through secondary market transactions, we optimized our portfolio structure. Thirdly, we seized the opportunity of refined management, given the yield curve, we flexibly adjust the strategy of investment.

Our capability has been enhanced in mitigating risk risks, rate risks, and profitability. Thirdly, we leveraged on our integrated services.

On the one hand, we enhanced income, and on the other hand, it becomes an important driver in operational transformation. Bond over- bond underwriting investment, these are deeply integrated in the cooperation, customers, institutional customers, and peer customers as part of integrated finance.

This will position us in a better way to meet the diversified needs from customers. For example, in H1 this year, for example, in panda bonds, in the first year, we saw the amount doubling in the first half, and bond issuance and bond underwriting volume has increased by 174%.

We offer asset allocation and risk management services to customers in China and overseas, customers can face market risks and volatility in a robust way. Going forward, we will focus on three areas in bond market businesses.

As a big bank, we will help the government implement policies supporting the demand of the real economy. Secondly, as a market maker in foreign currency and bond markets, we will provide liquidity.

Secondly, we will offer diversified investment vehicles and cross-border platforms. We will enrich transaction strategies, strengthening return in our investment portfolio, strengthening cross-border investment, especially in underwriting panda bonds.

We will help Chinese companies going overseas, and also foreign companies operating in China. Thirdly, we will develop a professional team specialized in investment transactions and sales.

We will strengthen the use of IT and other technologies, strengthening the business capability of our investment and financial business.

Thank you, Mr. Ji.

Now, we will take the question from Hong Kong. The fourth row to my left.

Thank you, management, for the opportunity. From UBS, I have a question regarding asset quality.

In the first half, CCB's asset quality was very stable. As we know, China's economy is faced with manifold challenges, especially in consumer market, retail banking, and personal finance.

How do you look at the asset quality in the second half? How do you enhance risk management?

How do you make sure that your stable development momentum can be sustained?

Thank you. I will take that question.

CCB is committed to coordinated development. We will think of the worst scenario, strengthening the management of credit risks with a better risk management system.

We can serve the real economy with high-quality services. Asset quality has been stable.

We have very good risk mitigation capability. As Mr.

Zhang said, as of the end of June 2024, NPL of CCB Bank was 1.29%, down by 0.02 percentage points compared with the end of last year. Provision coverage ratio, 238.9%, up 5.4 percentage points.

We have made arrangements in two aspects. Number one, we will serve the real economy.

We will take targeted measures in credit finance. We will align our services with the five priorities in national financial policy.

We will strengthen technology innovation and investment in advanced manufacturing, green finance, and infrastructure, etc. With better credit policies, we will develop loyal customer base serving retail customers like inclusive finance and micro and small enterprises.

Based on the structural and cyclical features of risks, we will optimize our strategy, the business management and risk management can be coordinated. On the other hand, we focus on key areas and strengthen the all-cycle management of credit risks.

We will focus on the new trends in credit risks, we can dynamically optimize long-term mechanisms of risk management. In corporate finance, in key regions, key customer groups, key project, we can manage in different dimensions with pre-checks and pre-warning capabilities.

We can form the synergy across the bank. In retail banking, we enhanced the management of corporate credit risks.

We will improve efficiency both online and offline. We will strengthen our strategy of granting loans, and during loan issuance, we will establish a complete risk warning system, and after loan assurance, we will strengthen collection system.

We can improve on the quality of disposal. Going forward, in the second half, CCB will be committed to stable progress, we can strengthen our risk control system, which is smart and proactive, we can build a very robust risk management foundation for high-quality growth.

Now, we will shift back to the Beijing venue. This gentleman in the fifth row on my left.

Thank you. From People's Daily, now, we have seen the shift of personal deposits.

I'd like to ask about the renewal of personal deposits in the first half. What were the new trends?

Faced with the low interest rates environment, what measures have been taken by CCB?

Mr. Tang will take that question.

Thank you. I believe this question is of great concern of investors.

In this year, CCB is committed to serving the public. We will take different measures in different customer groups, strengthening comprehensive services and high-quality services.

In the first half, personal customers, we have seen a very stable rate of personal deposit renewal. 90% of them have been renewed.

As Mr. Zhang said, there was an increase of 1.04 trillion in AUM.

Now, we have seen 24 trillion in personal deposits. Overall, deposits, funds, insurance, precious metal have seen diversified growth.

Faced with the low interest rate, we are committed to a customer-oriented approach. We will build our bank into a bank for retail customers.

We will serve the customers in the entire life cycle and in different scenarios. We will focus on settlement, investment, and financing.

As for settlement, we will focus on business scenarios and customer-based scenarios, we can build ecosystems, supply chains, and customer clusters. We will acquire customers from the source.

For example, enterprises and university campuses, we can acquire customers from social security card and payroll services. Through tiered services, we can expand asset level and make sure that they are deposited in our bank.

We will enhance the coverage of products like mobile banking, we can revitalize transaction dynamics. In terms of investment, we also try to seize the trend of wealth management to make it more inclusive, adaptable, and professional, push forward diversified growth.

In terms of inclusiveness, we also leverage on our retail customer base, continue to deepen our operation of optimized customer online service channel, so that the wealth management services can benefit more customers. In terms of adaptability, we also provided differentiated asset allocation schemes and product services for different customers.

By the end of June, there is a new increase of 5.57 million of wealth management customers. The retail investment wealth management also takes up over 30% in terms of proportion.

In terms of professionalism, we also try to we also continue to enhance our capability in terms of financing, centering around various needs of the customers. We are continue to enrich the loan product service systems in terms of consumption, residential housing, and operation.

We also continue to provide the whole livelihood-related services to the residential customers, improve the the compensation loan provision, and also also provide more consumer-related credit cards, connect more scenarios, and also balance the risk control needs. By the end of June, the personal consumption loan also stands at 781 billion, with an increase of 14% compared with last year.

Looking ahead, we will also continue to have a loose monetary policy, so that the personal capital can have more leeway. The personal capital will maintain steady growth.

The savings deposits will also maintain a very steady growth. Thank you.

Now, next question from Hong Kong. The gentleman on the fifth row on the left.

Thank you for the opportunity. I'm from Goldman Sachs, I'm Yang Shu.

We can see that the interim intermediary business income is very strong for the first half, I want to know about the fee and commission income. What is the main strategy and also the main direction for the development in this aspect?

I would like to invite Miss Han to answer the question.

Thank you for your question. Just as you mentioned, CCB has always highly emphasized on fee and commission income steady growth.

We think that it's a steady growth is also a key benchmark to measure the overall service capability of a commercial bank. Therefore, we also ride on the overall trend of the capital market and direct lending.

We also transform from the loan intermediary to service intermediary, the fee and commercial income is maintaining leading position in the industry. The fee income is standing at 68 billion yuan.

The income structure is from three aspects. We have three 20 billions.

The first 20 billion is that we seize the opportunity of the capital market, satisfying the various financing and investment needs of the customers, enrich our product structure, optimize allocation strategy, and also deepen the the service to the customers. We also accelerate the transformation of wealth management wealth management, capital management, and also the custody business.

The income is also exceeding 20 billion, and the retail investment wealth management wealth scale also exceeds 2.3 trillion, with a new increment of 3 30 trillion of 300 billion. The AUM is also over 7.35 trillion.

The capital custody scale is also standing at 24.45 trillion. The third-party custody customers also exceeds 100 million.

All the other businesses also increase by double-digit. This is the first 20 billion.

The second 20 billion is that we actively execute the national consumption stimulation policy about centering around tourism, shopping, entertainment, education, and sports and leisure activities. We are serving the 790 million customers.

We continue to optimize the products and service experience. The online transaction volume is also standing at 32.358 times, with a total volume of over 10 trillion.

The credit card consumption transaction amount is also 1.16 trillion, it's also contributing 20 billion to our fee income. The third 20 billion is that we enhance our professional capability centering around the corporate governments and various service needs of this corporate governments.

We continue to optimize settlements, the cash management, treasury development, and transaction banking. We continue to optimize the product function and their delivery experience.

The coverage of our customers and also customer experience have a very obvious improvement. The total settlement is also realizing over 118 million, and it is also has a very obvious improvement with a YoY increase of 40%.

It is also testi- testifying, verifying our service ability. The volume increase also exceeds over 20%, so that it has pushed the overall fee and commission income to reach 26 billion.

In the meantime, I also want to brief to you that we have a very unique cost evaluation function. This is very unique among the commercial banks, and we continued to expand the service scope and enrich the content of this service.

The overall functions and also value creation ability is also increasing. For the second half, we will continue to satisfy the customer needs, especially the diversified wealth management needs, adhering to the service creation value principle.

We have one focus, focus on the wealth preservation and increase of the customers, continue to to enrich the wealth management, wealth invest- wealth and also investment and custody services. We will also respond to the national consumption policy, continue to enrich the scenario development, expand the product services, and also the scope.

Third, we will also seize the opportunity of industry transformation and high-quality open-up. We will continue to optimize the corporate business scale, quality, and efficiency, and experience.

On the whole, we will create more value to our customers, and in that process, we will realize our own value creation for CCB, so that we will continue to consolidate our fee and commission income optimization.

Thank you, Miss Han. Now I would like to invite question from Beijing.

The lady on the sixth row on the left.

Hello. I'm from Financial Times.

I'm Zhang Bingjie. I also noticed that State Council in this July also had the new policy on consumption expansion.

We want to know how CCB look at these opportunities brought by consumption loans, and what kind of measures you will have, and also housing is also included in the major consumption scope, supporting the residents to have better housing needs. We want to know more about the mortgage and consumption loan strategy for CCB.

Okay. I will invite Mr.

Tang to answer the question.

Thank you. Improve consumption, expand the domestic needs is also one of our key strategy of qual- high-quality development.

It also created very vast room for development for commercial banks, we will carefully execute various requirements, continue to optimize the supply of financial products to expand consumption. First, we will actively execute the policy of financial coordination.

We will also try to stimulate the domestic needs, and also coordinate the supply chain. For the first half, CCB's subsidy is over 130 billion for the personal consumption loan and credit card payment.

For the second half, we will continue to improve the consumption policy execution. Second, we will also participate in the central government's and local government's major consumption financial activities, especially center around tourism and cultural consumption.

We also have some unique brands. For example, the Home Life and Auto Life platforms continue to expand the service, consumption, commodity consumption, and new-type consumption.

Third, we will continue to optimize the consumption financial products, and also to enrich various scenarios. We will, based on our customer base and our digital operation capability, integrate some new consumption scenarios, new types, so that we can cover a wider in terms of the personal consumption credit cards business, and also the the loan service system.

Our loan also increased by 12.3 billion for the first half, over 14% in terms of the consumption finance. You also mentioned about mortgage of residential housing.

Given this policy, we know that residential financing is also the traditional advantages business of CCB. We will continue to improve our model for residential development, better serve the residents' essential housing needs and bettering housing needs.

We will actively respond to these needs so as so that we will have a new characteristics for serving the incremental housing markets. We will also cater to the new models of the second-hand housing markets, improve our mortgage capability.

For the first half, with the warming up of the existing housing transaction, we have maintained very steady growth. Second, we will continue to have integrated comprehensive financial service system for the housing mortgage.

We will provide whole-chain financial service to clients to pursue better housing needs. Based on our Home Life platform, we will also facilitate the clients to satisfy their consumption in terms of the home appliances, etc.

We will also enrich some new financial service models. For example, the village in the urban villages, we will also cater to the needs.

We will also have a tailored services for the housing financial services, so that various needs of the customers can be satisfied. In the meantime, we can also improve facilitate the high-quality development of urban area.

Thank you.

Earlier, prior to this meeting, we distributed a notice to collect questions of concern through investor hotlines, and we received some messages on the online platform. Most of the questions were addressed in this meeting.

On top of that, some questions were related to capital and dividends. These questions have been addressed as well.

Some investors asked online, "In the first half, your capital adequacy ratio remained high. What are the internal and external capital replenishment measures?

What are the measures going forward? In the 2024, the interim dividend has been raised to 31% in its ratio.

What was the rationale behind?" Mr.

Ji will take the question.

In the first half, capital adequacy ratio is 19.42%, core tier-1 CAR is 14.24%, which is quite good. That is attributable to our right approach to operation risk management.

We have been committed to the balanced development of risk management, volume growth, and price adjustment. There are a few features.

We give priority to organic growth. We solidified capital foundation.

In the first half, net profit, 171 billion RMB, up 5.56% YoY. Excluding interim dividends, the growth was 110 billion.

That means CAR has been raised by 0.44 percentage point. Secondly, we have strengthened lean management of capital.

We have adopted an approach focusing on economic added value very early on through 20 years. We have established a capital planning system covering the whole bank in different branches and different layers.

On top of core business, we are committed to saving capital. For those businesses with low efficiency in capital use, we will regularly review them and adjust the growth of risk-weighted assets.

Thirdly, we will make orderly arrangement for issuance of capital vehicle. We will look at when this existing capital vehicles expire, and we will look at customers' and investment investors' demand.

In the first half, we issued 30 billion of capital bonds without fixed term, and 60 billion tier-2 capital bonds, and 60 billion of TLAC bonds. Our TLAC as an indicator is very robust.

In capital in dividend payout, we give priority to investors' returns. Since IPO, the dividends paid amounted to 1.4 trillion.

In the last three years, every year, we proposed dividends of over 100 billion RMB. Our dividend payout ratio has been over 30%.

To better return to the investors in the interim dividends 2024, the dividend payout ratio has been revised up to 31%. This is a final decision given a consideration to the return to customers, return to shareholders, and long-term development of the bank.

We will further increase the attractiveness of our dividends, and we have reserved relatively sufficient internal assets, and the proposed dividend will be implemented after being approved by the board. Going forward, we will be committed to the principles of robustness and a pro- a prudent capital management.

With that, we will strengthen the internal capital growth, we will issue capital vehicles in an orderly way, and our capital adequacy ratio and the return capital return will maintain at a very optimized level, we can create better value to shareholders.

In the interest of time, we will take the very final question, and the question will come from Beijing. This gentleman on the fifth row on the right-hand side.

Thank you. From Guangfa Securities, I have a question about the use of AI.

In this year, what were the strategies and practices in AI by CCB? What's the progress in technology, security, and compliance?

Mr. Lei would take the question.

Thank you. Artificial intelligence has been always a concern.

We've been implementing the decision by the Party and the government. Artificial intelligence is a strategic option for high-quality development.

We will enhance the deep integration of finance, operational management, and artificial intelligence. We enhance our fundamental capabilities.

We have a three-year plan called AI Plus. This will provide an action plan for rapidly growing technologies, and it also stipulates timelines for our annual schedule.

We have agent platforms. We support business units to develop agents.

We will try to include each and every employee in the development of AI technologies. We will explore business needs and will offer one-stop service to make sure that they are implemented.

We will create an ecosystem where everyone can contribute. Regulations, product knowledge, case studies, and experience can be all included in an enterprise-level knowledge base.

Compliance and security will be involved in the whole process of AI development and application. We will set up an evaluation system for model, data, and applications.

We will include the new risks coming from AI in our regular monitoring process, so that the development and applications of AI are controllable and safe. Secondly, we will focus on our real business.

We have launched over 600 AI-powered applications based on our scenario, we are working in collaboration with AI and with human beings. Number one, one of these case studies has to do with customer operation.

Bond is the smart assessment assistant to customer services, we can use this tool to cover the scope of work of customer managers. Monthly active users in the first half were over 40,000, and the interactions were over 90 million.

Bond can help our customer managers promote their operational performance. With this AI tool, the new asset under management increased by 57%.

In inclusive finance, we can collect customers' case studies, transactions, and transaction data in 20 minutes, we don't have to make the customers come to the branches and outlets. Through AI analysis, customer managers can generate reports, and the process takes only 2 to 3 hours instead of 2 to 3 days prior.

We have strengthened our capability in verifying the authenticity of customer information. We will take a deeper look at customer's needs, we can promote services in a targeted way, covering over 6 million inclusive finance customers.

In risk management, we can use AI in customer risk mitigation and identification, we can strengthen its use in the whole process of granting a loan and approving a loan. We have developed agents for looking at strategic and structural changes, and with 3 months, we have covered over 90,000 records with AI, we can identify potential risks early on and report them.

In operation services, we have improved the AI assistant for bank employees working in outlets in their business. The system will give them heads-up on the problems of concern.

Of course, they can ask questions and launch the survey. For example, they can check corporate accounts, and they can work remotely.

In this process, we have set up a new model with human beings and AI working together. In research and development, AI has become involved in the whole process, from coding to safety to security approval and risk pre-warning.

It's involved in every step. The contribution from AI coding, the contribution rate increased by 50%, and the adoption rate of AI-generated cases is close to 70%.

We will make sure that this digital system can understand our language and can read complex documents, we can get data real-time. Different roles and different positions will be included in the AI tool, the use of data is compliant, and they can also meet the demand of employees in their own use.

Going forward, we will strictly implement the requirements of the regulators, and we will set up the regulations for development of artificial intelligence. We will seize the opportunity of AI development.

Given that AI must be controllable and safe, we will make sure that it contributes to high-quality development of the bank and also the building of a strong financial power.

Thank you, Mr. Lei.

Dear analysts, dear friends, in the interest of time, we will wrap up the Q&A session here. The management has responded to the questions in a frank and candid way.

We hope that their responses can help you better understand our business developments and business results and development trends. Here, we will wrap up the whole press conference.

If you have further questions, please get in touch with the board office and the PR department of the group. Now, this press conference will be wrapped up, and I wish you good health and every success.

Thank you.