However, specific plans have yet to be made by government departments and the bank won't rush to get the job done, he noted.

"The joint-stock reform of the ABC is the last of the country's reforms of state-owned commercial banks and we can't make any mistakes or errors," said Han.

"We won't be massively cutting staff or dissolving internal institutions this year, as both the number of the bank's institutions have been halved to 24,900 and staff reduced to 450,000," he said.

The ABC has hired the world's largest human resources management consulting company, Mercer, to launch a human resources reform and set up a staff assessing system.

Han refused to discuss details of the bank's capital injections, strategic investor introduction and listing, saying the bank is in touch with major domestic and foreign institutional investors.

With total assets of 5.36 trillion yuan (670 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2006, the ABC raked in 58.1 billion yuan in operating profits last year, the bank's figures show.

The ABC will mainly address the country's rural development as required by the government, which will result in fewer profits than urban businesses bring the bank, according to Han.

However, the problem will be solved in the long term as a result of government support and the country's improving county-level economy, said Han.

He said the ABC has lent 2.07 trillion yuan to fund rural projects in the past six years and will add a net 470 billion yuan of credit within five years.

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