The Bank is constantly enhancing its ability to create value for its shareholders. The operating revenue of the Bank climbed from RMB148.3 billion in 2006 to RMB182.7 billion in 2007; after-tax profit grew from RMB48.2 billion to RMB62.0 billion; the ratio of impaired loans decreased to 3.17% from 4.24%, average shareholder return on funds remained steady at 14%; and return on assets increased from 0.96% to 1.10%.

The Bank is one of the country's top taxpayers. In 2007, the Bank paid enterprise income tax of RMB28.6 billion, up 45.69% from 2006. In 2006, the Bank placed second on a list of the top 100 taxpayers, and was consequently awarded the title of "Enterprise of A degree of tax paying credit in Beijing". In 2005, the Bank occupied the third place in the nation's top 100 taxpayers, and the second place in the national top 100 taxpayers of enterprise income tax.

Export-oriented economic growth is making an increasingly high contribution to China's economic development. The Bank has become a major financial services provider to the export-oriented economy by virtue of its widespread domestic and overseas network and specialized foreign exchange operations. It plays an important role in the international settlement and trade finance fields through service offerings such as L/C, collection, L/G, factoring and trade financing to various Chinese and foreign-invested enterprises.

BOC is also a leading innovator, launching new products such as the "Custom Declaration Express" tariff guarantee, online tax payment guarantee, L/G of put warrants, forfaiting under D/A note, and forfaiting under export credit risk. In 2007, in cooperation with China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation, the Bank integrated the forfaiting business into the export credit insurance business, and took the lead in launching a non-recourse financing business. In addition, the Bank opened a "golden channel" for the many Chinese enterprises oriented towards the international market. In 2007, the Bank joined the Trade Services Utilities (TSU) data matching engine organized by SWIFT, developing new financing products based on credit sale, and completed the first true TSU transaction in China.

The Bank registered total international settlement business volumes of USD1.4 trillion in 2007, making it the first bank in the world to break through the trillion-dollar mark for international settlement volumes.

BOC's depth of experience in commercial banking, investment banking and insurance combines with its far-reaching network of domestic and overseas institutions to lend powerful support to the international operations of renowned national enterprises, which need overseas financing, project acquisition, cash management，financial consultation and business information services in order to grow their businesses overseas. BOC has helped companies such as CNPC, Sinopec, Minmetals Development Co, China Huaneng Group, COSCO, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, China Communications Construction Company Ltd, China Mobile, Huawei and ZTE achieve their goals through its global credit line, international settlement, treasury business, cash management, investment banking and other business portfolios.

BOC is the sole bank undertaking work for the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce's "Special Fund for Risk Guarantee of External Contracting Projects". The Bank issues letters of guarantee for bid, performance and advance payments to qualified domestic enterprises engaged in external contracting projects. These guarantees cover contracts amounting to USD26.9 billion, and support projects undertaken by over 80 large contracting enterprises in over 60 countries and regions, involving housing, main dams, power stations, product oil pipelines, roads, sanitary facilities, water supply and sanitary works, sewage treatment, factory expansion and restructuring, railway construction, and other public and civil works.

The Bank also grants credit facility to the external projects of Chinese enterprises. In 2006, the Bank checked and ratified L/G credit of RMB40.5 billion towards a successful bid by CITIC Group and China Railway Construction Corporation to work on the west and middle sections of Algeria's east-west highway, guaranteeing the smooth construction of the project.

The Bank has built up long-term, stable and cooperative relationships with numerous large corporate customers, including stateowned enterprises, private enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises, financial institutions and government bodies, through its diverse corporate banking services. These include loans, discount notes, international trade financing, deposit, settlement, clearing and other financial products. Focusing on lending in Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and America, the Bank conducts integrated marketing with BOC International, BOCG Investment and BOC Insurance, enhancing its ability to provide a comprehensive service to customers.

The Bank extends vigorous support to industry-leading medium and large-sized projects, as well as to enterprises of a particular scale and technological advantages in key areas.

In conformity with state industrial policies, the Bank supports new enterprises and projects that conserve energy and protect the environment, while reducing its dealings with projects characterized by high energy consumption or heavy pollution, a lack of scale and technological advantage, or poor credit.

The Bank has launched an innovative online corporate banking service platform, which provides customers with easy access to RMB book management, collection and payment management, centralized management of funds within the Group, and foreign exchange fund collection and management services. In 2007, the trade volume of the Bank's online banking exceeded RMB27 trillion, up 154.69% over the previous year. The service scope has been expanded to nine overseas branches.

To meet the latest business demands of corporate customers, the Bank has increased its efforts to develop supply chain financing products and services, including financing services against receivables, L/C against receivables, financing against export credit insurance and cargos.

The Bank also serves as a corporate financial consultant by offering structured financing arrangements, listing and debt issuance counseling, mergers and acquisition consultation, asset management, corporate credit service and overseas business consultation services to corporate customers.

The Bank has participated in many overseas aircraft financing projects,including projects for French and Japanese customers, as well as major domestic air companies. The Bank maintains good cooperation with the main domestic shipping companies by participating in many large-sized shipping financingprojects.

The Bank has also organized and participated in dozens of syndicated loan projects at home and abroad. In 2007, BOC set up three regional overseas syndicated loan arrangement centers for Europe and Africa,Asia Pacific and America. The Bank ranked first in 2007 in respect of syndicated loans in mainland China.

In line with its customer-centered focus, the Bank is constantly enhancing its service capability in order to meet increasing demand for financial services from personal customers.

The Bank has optimized the distribution of its outlets after embarking on a program of outlet transformation in 2005. Since then, the Bank has enhanced the customer experience by introducing different zones for different outlet functions, adding low counters, and enhancing traffic flows. By the end of 2007, the Bank had restructured more than 4,000 outlets.

The Bank has also developed its online banking and telephone banking services, and increased the availability of self-service equipment with the addition of 4,790 new self-service machines, including ATMs, in 2007.

The Bank constantly strives to perfect its personal customer service system. It has established 366 wealth management centers and over 1,000 wealth management offices in China, run by a professional wealth management team consisting of over 200 wealth management and investment consultants and over 2,500 wealth management managers. This dedicated team provides customers with investment and wealth management plans, products and other professional services. BOC is a pioneer in private banking: its private banking departments in Beijing and Shanghai are the first of their kind in China.

The Bank requires its managers to give customers investment suggestions only when the customers have a complete understanding of the product and fully recognize the investment risks. This is in accordance with regulations on the distribution process of investment and wealth management products.

The Bank provides diversified financial services to help customers improve their quality of life. As of the end of 2007, the Bank had extended housing loans of RMB850.760 billion to 3.86 million personal customers, and extended automotive loans of RMB157.516 billion to 1.18 million customers.

The Bank attaches great importance to customer satisfaction. BOC regularly carries out surveys of customer satisfaction levels so as to better understand customer demand and improve service quality. These unremitting efforts have been repaid by a substantial decrease of customer complaints and a gradual improvement in the satisfaction ratio of replies to the complaints.

Drawing on the experience of its strategic partners, the Bank has modified its service model for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) by revising its credit policies and simplifying the operational procedures of its credit business. BOC has also launched a number of new SME products, including "Kuaifuyi", a new short-term financing product to meet SMEs' financing demands and support the development of innovation- focused SMEs.

The Bank has also helped educate SMEs by offering training courses that explain state export rebates and other new policies in detail, and has created a customs margin account for processing trade and taxation guarantee services tailored for customers of this kind.