The Agricultural Bank of China is expected to get a huge capital injection from the government in the first half of the year, a substantial breakthrough in lender reform, a report said Wednesday.

The National Audit Office has started auditing the Agricultural Bank of China in preparation for the lender's restructuring and listing, according to the China Securities Journal, citing unnamed insiders.

Pedestrians walk past a branch of Agricultural Bank of China in Shanghai. The Agricultural Bank of China is expected to get a huge capital injection from the government in the first half of the year, a substantial breakthrough in lender reform, a report said Wednesday. [newsphoto/file]

The result is expected to be published in the first half of the year before the government injects capital into the last of China's Big Four commercial banks to be reformed. The other three, the Bank of China (BOC), China Construction Bank (CCB) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) have gone public in Hong Kong after restructuring.

The government injection of money into the agricultural bank through Huijin Investment Co. may take place as early as the first half of the year, the report said.

The actual figure depends on the results of the auditing, the report said. But it cited a Huijin senior official as saying that the scale is sure to be larger than any one of the other three Big Four. The report put the figure at US$25 to30 billion, but did not reveal how it got the number.

Huijin, launched in 2003, represents the State in its investments in major financial institutions. It invested US$22.5 billion into the BOC and CCB and US$15 billion into ICBC before their listings.

The negative influence of the auditing on the bank, plagued by tremendous bad loans due to its huge unprofitable lending in the rural sector, will be limited, the report cited analysts as saying. Instead, the auditing will facilitate the bank's listing in a speedy and standard way.

The National Audit Office did not carry out full auditing over the other three of the Big Four before their reform. But the complications in the agricultural bank's reform made auditing a necessity as its reform has to be put in the overall structure of the rural financial system and the huge loss the lender incurred when carrying out policy operations has to be written off before financial restructuring.

The reform cost of the agricultural bank was estimated at 9,000 billion yuan, with a large part used for writing-off of its bad and non-performing debts, according to the report.

An external audit by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu which started last August, is also expected to end in the first half-year. The international auditor's report will further specify the financial cost of the reform, the report said.

Unlike its three counterparts, the agricultural bank may not introduce overseas strategic investors and may get listed only in Shanghai, the Securities Times said last week in a report, citing unnamed sources.