With that, I'd like to express my appreciation to your active participation, and my thanks go to your long-term support and interest in the development of ABC . Today, we are with us, Mr. Lin Li, Vice President of Agricultural Bank of China, Vice President of Agricultural Bank of China Liu Hong, and Vice President.
RMB 280.7 billion, 1.6%. Then second, newly grossed loan, RMB 2.29 trillion, or 10.13%. The gross of corporate and individual loans, or personal loans, are leading our peers, and also the individual loan, or the discrepancy, is 0.242%, and also leading among the peers. Asset quality was sound. NPL ratio 1.3%, down by three basis points from the year-end of last year. Special mention loan ratio 1.4%, down by two basis points. Overdue loan ratio 1.18%, and ratio of overdue loan to NPL 90.94, and provision coverage ratio 299%, and remained well-capitalized and risk resilience. Capital adequacy for the is increased. We issued around RMB 320 billion TLIC and capital bond, and CAR increased by 1.05%. CT1 CAR was 11.42%. The return to investors has been increased. The dividend ratio and potential and performance has been recognized by the investors.
In 2024, the stock price of A-share and H-share has been increased by 55% and 58%, respectively, and also ranking first among the comparable peers. Recommended by the board of directors based on the out, and there will be CNY 1.255 per 10 shares, plus the interim, so we'll have CNY 2.419 per 10 shares, and we have around CNY 80 billion of dividends payouts. Measures we have taken, the operating results or performance are attributable to the strong leadership of the Central Committee and the government. It is also possible because of interest in the customers paid by the customers and the private sectors. We are too to the high-quality development. More specifically, our job or down in the following five aspects.
First, we focus on our main business and continue to strengthen our financial service to the agriculture, farm, and rural areas, and the strategies development has a broad. Level has provided a more and more important role in the development of Agricultural Bank of China. We focus on food security and also consolidating the poverty alleviation and enhance our financial support, growing the loan balance to the important agriculture products, more than CNY 1 trillion, and also we have more than 15% growth rate of the agriculture area. The farmers, we also increase our coverage of the loan to farmers to help the farmers. Huilongyi loan reached CNY 1.49 trillion, 33.37% growth. The second focus on the real economy to the five key chapters of finance. We focus on the real economy, continue to enhance our financial supply with the reasonable growth rate of the volume.
We focus on the five chapters, five key areas of finance and enhance the investment in the key areas as well as the weak links of the economy to enhance the quality of financial service. In fintech, we actively innovate our financial products as well as the service mechanisms that focus the fintech or the technology companies. We establish the specific credit service system, and for the technology companies at different development stages, we build a whole lifecycle matrix of the products, and we rolled out then the empowerment loan as well as the loan as well as external direct investment alone. We established the equity investment pilot fund, and we assigned the strategic agreement with the cities and relevant businesses were put into operation by the end of 2024. ABC's loan balance to strategic areas more than CNY 2.5 trillion growth rate to more than 22%.
In green finance, we implement the green finance strategy focused on clean energy and the upgrading of infrastructures as well as energy conservation, enhancing our asset supply, accredited supply. Based on the features, we rolled out the three agriculture integrated development, enhanced our green agriculture development as well as the improvement of the environment in rural areas, enhanced our accredited supply as well as the service to the green investment. We originate the green bond and also enhance the appropriate green bond investment and innovate the ESG themed WMP. The green bond balance is CNY 4.97 trillion, an increase of 22.9% from the year-end of last year. In inclusive finance, we established ABC featured online offline integrated as development model, create multi-scenario credit products to meet the inclusive finance borrowers' demand.
We implement the support to small and micro borrowers and visit the credit volume and the borrowers we visited. Those indicators were ranking number one among the comparable peers. By the end of 2024, the inclusive finance loan balance increased rate more than 30% for six consecutive years and balance RMB 4.66 trillion, number one among the peers. The largest coverage and the sustainable development is the best among the peers. In pension finance, we support the multiplier pension fund development, the real social insurance card, and the QR code. That number has been leading the peers. The management scale and the number of the pension fund is increasing rapidly. We actively supplement the product supply, newly added 140 pension fund products, and also pension funding finance has been developed. The loan has been grown at 68%. In digital finance, we use digital plus algorithm.
We rolled out Shanghui loan and Wijia loan as well as other innovative products. We use the enterprise level architecture as well as the digital tools to provide the bottom line digital support to the customers. We have an online offline and agricultural E loan. The balance reached RMB 5.73 trillion and 34.8% growth rate. Agricultural Bank of China actually responded to the financing mechanism in the real estate sector. We approved more than 1,000 whitelist projects and provide RMB 400 billion loan balance and preemptively reached the major projects equipment upgrading as well as we signed around RMB 130 billion and also loan balance is RMB 28.5 billion and support the cross-border RMB settlement. The growth rate is 13.7%. The third, we focus on the people's livelihood. Finance for people's livelihood is the basic feature of finance.
While maintaining its own sustainable development, Agricultural Bank of China stays true to its mission to serve people's well-being, to serve the immediate problems and interests of people's livelihood. To provide people's livelihood, we enhance financial support in education, medical care, and housing. The loan balance has been individual loan has been increased by around 1.94%, number one in the majors. We personal consumption loan and growth at 28.3%, also number one among the comparable peers. For the key customers, we optimize the aging population as well as the international friends living in China. We provide the channel optimization as well as other areas to provide a more inclusive and a more convenient environment for payment and provide the wealth avenues of the people putting out of poverty. We provide the people, we provide the benefits to around 580 million.
For the consumer rights protection, the mechanism for the whole lifecycle of the products as well as the service provide in the rights to know as well as other legitimate rights of consumers. In 2024, for 1,000 outlets and for 110 million complaints or the least, and also the regulators' comments for feedback has been improved. For the consumer finance, and also we responded to the jobs, we enhance our headcounting in hirement and to supplement vacancy since 2021 for each year. The newly added employees are among the peers and the first. In 2024, we hire 32,000 employees. In the future, we'll continue to hire more employees. In 2025, we will increase our headcount. Recently, we noticed that the spring hirement, the hirement or headcount plan is an annual plan.
Please look at the figure for the whole year so that there will be more comprehensive and to get a paramount picture about the employment by ABC. We focus on the risk control, focus on the development as well as risk control. Risk control is the top priority of ABC, risk management focused on three areas. First one is a key area risk control, market risk, and technology risk control. For the key areas risk control, ABC focused on the preemptive deployment. It has more active and intelligent risk management mechanism focused on emerging areas, industries, and retail and the inclusive finance to we have the borrower or the customer specific to do the risk mitigation and also province specific mitigation measures.
We also enhance the platform market risk control and enhance the offshore and the see-through monitoring and also optimize the risk exposure and enhance the market risk monitor to be more targeted and real effective. For the technology risk control, we put forward in the three areas risk discovery or recovery and also we completed the distributive architecture final accounting and enhanced the cybersecurity mechanism, protection mechanism, and also the daily transaction has been 1.5 billion and also the service availability rate at the important time has been 99.9%. The fifth focus is on the reform and innovation to build the new driving force of businesses in 2024. Agricultural Bank of China implemented the spirit of the third plenary of the 20th CBC Central Committee and explored in technology innovation. We built the intelligent banking system and we put in the digital and AI application.
While at the same time explore the application of large language models using knowledge to empower our internal management, improving efficiency, internal management and control. For business management, we deepen our reform of the agricultural development to ensure the support and we coordinate the pricing and volume and make the pricing more targeted and also enhance the credit review, improve the credit granting efficiency. For the first service efficiency, enhance the CRM team. CRM has been increased to 113,000 and the queuing time at the outlets has been reduced by 20%. Now I'd like to report to you on the third part, that is in 2025, our outlook for 2025.
In 2025, with the economy turning for the better and the momentum remained good, we believe that with the continuing unleashing of the consumption boosting policies, we think that the consumption will remain stable and investment will continue to maintain fast growth. For infrastructure investment, it will be supported. Housing market will continue to be improved. In terms of export, although there are some uncertainties, we estimate that we'll remain resilient. In the meantime, we will also have more proactive policies, monetary policy and fiscal policy that will be strengthened or enhanced macro management and control. All this will actually provide a very good external environment for us. Also for 2025, it is also the end year of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Bank of China will continue to strengthen risk management, promote growth, to continuously improve our development and to serve the real economy and maintain the stability of the financial sector and also to provide sustainable and tangible return to our shareholders. Specifically, firstly, we will stick to our main business and to strengthen the county-level agro-related development. Secondly, to support macro economy policy and to further enhance the five priorities in the financial sector. Thirdly, to strengthen risk management control and keep the bottom line of risk management control and also to improve customer satisfaction and improve reform and innovation. So much for my presentation. Now we will go into entering to the Q&A session. Ms. Liu will be hosting the session. Thank you.
Thank you, President Wang. Now we are going into the interaction session. For this session, one delegate is limited to only one question.
Before raising question, please identify yourself. Now the first question, the gentleman, please.
Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm from CIC. I'm Lin Qi. In 2024, operating income and the profit growth is the first among the peers. I'm wondering what's the reason behind this and what is your expectation for the sustainability of such a good momentum this year? Thank you.
I'll take this question. Actually, in my presentation, I've already talked about the five focuses of our work, which to some extent have explained the reasons why we have such a good momentum in business growth. I would like to share with you some specific experiences. In the past year, we have done a lot of work in the following aspects. The first one is to improve the credit structure.
For example, we try to further strengthen the support to the real economy. In 2024, the real economy loans have increased by 10.1%, which accounts for 93.8% of the total domestic loans. You can see that this improved credit structure has actually improved the returns for those loans. This is part of the reason. Secondly, it is about the pricing and quantity balance. While improving our quality of service, we try to optimize the pricing of our assets and also to implement relevant requirements and also in order to maintain the net interest margin decline within a reasonable range. Last year it was 1.42%. We can see there has been a three basis points decline compared with that of the previous year. Also, for non-interest income, while against the background of fee concession, we have tried to seize the opportunity of consumption upgrading and focus on the.
For loan provision, it exceeded RMB 100 billion. The risk compensation capability has also remained high. That is what drives our operating income and also profit growth. Looking to 2025, as I have just mentioned, what is our expectation for the market? As I just mentioned, we still have confidence in the future that we will maintain the profitability growth. We will work in the following aspects. The first one is we will continue to seize the opportunity in economic development and promote the high-quality growth of Agricultural Bank of China. Also, there are a lot of packages of policies issued. This will actually bring us a lot of new growth points. The key is whether we can actually seize this opportunity to seize these development points. This is quite important.
We need to build a modern industrial system, the green finance, and all these are opportunities for us in the future. While serving the national strategy, we're trying to realize our own high-quality development. For the first two months of 2025, we can see that the loans and the deposits have maintained very good growth with improved operating efficiency. Basically, we can see that the growth in the key areas has been higher than the average. Here, I'd like to share with you some data. The first one is recently for PBOC financial inclusive loan, we have exceeded the CNY 5 trillion threshold. For personal loans, we're the first among our peers to realize the CNY 9 trillion. For private-owned enterprise loans, we've also exceeded the CNY 7 trillion threshold. For county loans, we can see that the growth rate has become 47%.
From this, we can see that in the first two months of this year, in 2025, we have really done a lot while serving the national economy. That is to say, we've realized our own growth. Apart from the opportunities, we also try to strengthen management. As I mentioned, balance the pricing and the quantity and also to ensure the interest-bearing assets grow and to improve the interest-gaining assets structure and to also seize the opportunities of the market and to strengthen the deposit base. Also, we need to balance the price and quantity and try to ensure the stable growth of NIM. Thirdly, we need to strengthen our judgment and analysis and to promote the growth of non-interest income. We need to ensure the fee-based income to grow and to improve its contribution to our total income.
We can see that there has been huge room for the non-interest income. Also, we need to strengthen the management to ensure the asset quality stability. We need to balance our business and try to strengthen the risk management control, specifically in the following in specific key areas. As to provide a sound foundation for the long-term and sustainable growth of our profitability.
Thank you.
Thank you, President Wang. Now, the next question. The friends on the right.
Thank you. I'm from Xinhua News Agency. My question is about deposit. Last year, the deposit growth in the banking sector is actually under pressure. What's your judgment and estimates for the deposit this year? Are there any further room of decline in terms of the interest-bearing assets?
Also, under such circumstances, in terms of what are the measures you will take in terms of optimizing your liability side assets?
Thank you. Thank you for your question. To balance asset and liability business, this is quite critical for us. I think the key is to ensure match. Also, through constant internal pricing ability to promote the high-quality operation and development. In 2024, we have been supporting macro control, and we actively conform to the rules and changes of the market to promote the deposit growth. This high-quality development of deposit shows three matching features. The first one is loan reserve increase, which is in line with the social needs. We can see that the deposit growth is around CNY 2.2 trillion. We can see that we're still ranking among the top among our peers.
For personal loans, daily average volume has been increased by 1.74. Deposit growth can actually ensure our credit extension in a balanced way. The third one is the asset utilization and return. We can see last year, the interest paying ratio was 1.56%. That is 0.15 percentage points compared with the previous year. For interest, there has been a reasonable difference between the interest-bearing and interest-paying. For the future trend of deposit growth for us, we think that last year, at the end of last year, the central government raised that we need to implement the moderately easy monetary policy. We can see there has been moderately monetary growth. The deposit growth has also created very good monetary and fiscal policy. We estimate that this year, the deposits will still maintain the balanced growth.
We will continue to build customer base to promote deposit growth to better serve the rural-rich nation and the real economy. In terms of the interest cost, last year, we can see there have been twice the lending rate downward adjustment. We can see that has been improved mechanism in this aspect. We estimate that the cost will be reduced to some extent, mainly based on the following three reasons. The first one is that since last year, the deposit rate downward policies were further unleashed. Secondly, after these policies have been managed, we think that this will actually further reduce the cost, reduce the pressure in this aspect. There has been an interest cost cycle. We can see that the foreign currency interest cost has been decreasing.
To some extent, we think that the interest paying or cost will be still going down. Last year, we can see the time deposit accounts for an increasing percentage. This increase has been not as much as previously. What do we look at this figure? This means that there has been more resilience in deposit. If we look at the maturity, it actually relates to the trend of interest rate. When there is low interest rate, the long duration for deposit will be better for us to manage the full cycle of the deposit. We can see it reflects the changes in people's wealth management behaviors and also in the financial market. With economy turning for the better, consumers' confidence in the market. It's better for the adjustment of their liability structures.
Looking to the future, ABC to meet the customer's requirement and demand, we're continuing to optimize the liability structure to support the credit supply to the real economy, major four aspects. The first one is to focus on the customer-based development. This is the priority of the priority. To be more specific, we want to expand the customer scale while at the same time, we want to optimize the customer structure. The third, to promote the deep-rooted customer and to enhance the customer experience, use high-quality products as well as a convenient financial service to enhance the goodness or loyalty of the customers. Also to strengthen the core competitiveness. To be more specific, enhance our revitalization and include finance, pension finance, to continue to consolidate ABC's accounting business as well as retail business. That is our comparative advantage.
Third, we need to enhance the intelligence of the IT management and to have a stratified management of the customer so as to enhance the deposits, products, and the service to enhance the revenue of the sources of low cost. Also, we need to of the credit supply and the key areas of the credit granting. Thank you for the question. I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Liu Hong, Vice President of Agricultural Bank of China, to take your question.
Thank you for the question. In 2024, Agricultural Bank of China implemented the strategic deployment of the country focused on main business. Focus on two missions. Focus on key areas and key words of weakness of the economies. Provide high-quality service for the high-quality development of the economy. Credit granting maintained the stable growth in terms of scale and also optimized the structure.
To be more at first, provide a service to the real economy. Increase of the coverage and the scale. Non-balance reached RMB 24.9 trillion. The 2.3%, 10.1%. Corporate loan, RMB 1.4 trillion growth, 10.6%. The customer was a loan, 85,000 growth rate of 9.4%. Volume and speed are higher than that of the previous year. Leading among the peers. The newly added customer, 785%. Contribute to the county-level balance reached. The newly county-level balance, more than RMB 1 trillion. Counted for more than 47%. The growth rate, 12.3%. 22% was higher than average of the Agricultural Bank of China. The rural and county-level growth rate, 21%. 14.8% higher than the average growth rate of the bank wide. Rural loan, 36.6%. The five key areas of financial sector growth fast. Strategic emerging growth, green credit, more than 22%.
Manufacturing growth rate, 20.2% higher than the average loan growth rate of the bank. Inclusive finance sector loan balance, CNY 4.6 trillion. Newly added, more than CNY 1 trillion. Private sector loan balance, 6.3% balance. The growth rate or volume higher than the peer. Pension loan, more than CNY 10 billion. Fast response to the stimulus packages. Implementing the financing mechanism on the rural areas with this exercise. Enhancing the credit revenue. Provide more than CNY 400 billion to the whitelist rate of subprojects. Provide in the SMEs financing 2024. Provide the companies within the list, CNY 704 billion. Provide services to the major infrastructure and projects. Provide in total more than CNY 740 billion. Infrastructure contract volume is ranking among the top of the peers.
The credit card and individual or personal loans, growth, speed, and volume are also ranking among the top. Retail credit advantage has been consolidated. With leverage on our outlets, wide coverage in the rural areas is used to optimize the individual loan businesses. The credit card and the business card increased by more than CNY 94.8 billion. The credit card increased more than CNY 650 billion by the end of Q1 this year. The credit card balance exceeded CNY 9 trillion. This year, there will be a more active monetary fiscal policy and accommodative monetary policy. There will be credit demand in the real economy. Agricultural Bank of China will seek steady growth while at the same time seek innovation for the key areas to enhance the financial service to the key areas and also to enhance the volume structure and the pace of credit granting.
The total credit volume will be grow in a steady and a balanced way. Provide a service to the rural areas and provide financial services to the planting in spring. Also provide the credit support to the key areas of the agricultural development. Accelerate the loan to the farmers as well as enhance the percentage of the county-level loan balance. Also provide financial service to the domestic demand, consumption stimulation. Provide service to the water system, urban infrastructure, as well as transportation. Also to explore the traditional consumption and new consumption models, consumption demands, such as tourism and pension. Also enhance the benign growth of consumption loan and also meet the first-time buyers as well as the credit demand for the replacement demand of the housing needs.
Third, promote inclusive finance development as well as financial service to the private sectors and leverage on our advantages in the rural areas. Provide leverage advantages as well as technologies to provide the needed to the private sectors and small and medium-sized enterprises. Enhance the demand of the sector for the green finance focus on green upgrading as well as green development. Thank you. Thank you for the question. ABC has always put risk prevention and management at the top of the agenda of their work with focus on key areas, risk management, and enhanced risk management base. As a quality, has been ranking among the top of the among the peers. In overall, NPR ratio 1.3%, special mention loan ratio 1.4%, down from the year beginning. The difference between overdue loans and POs has been negative for 18 months.
Also mitigate the risks and provision coverage ratio is high. We have maintained high and strong risk offset capacity. Corporate loan asset quality is good, NPR ratio 1.58%. That has been maintained as a downward slope for four consecutive years. Individual loan 1.03%, a little bit upward from the year beginning. The overall asset quality is at a good level. We do believe that the trend is in line with the overall banking industry sector as well as our expectation. For the key sectors, asset quality is stable while getting to the better for real estate sector NPR ratio. It has been down two basis points from the year beginning. In promoting the rally up and sound development around the sector as well as combined with the risk management, we have achieved overall stable NPR ratio.
The local government debt to risk within the package stimulus measures from the central government and the financing vehicle customers' ratio and the number has been going down. Asset quality has been stable overall. Outlook for this year, asset quality of ABC will continue to be maintained at a stable level. NPR ratio will be kept at a good level among the peers. The indicators like overdue ratio and NPR ratio, special mention loan ratio will also be kept at a control level and also will have sufficient risk resilience. To be more specific, for external environments, we do believe that China's macroeconomy is moving forward. That is a fundamental. Such kind of fundamental has not been changed and has provided more favorable conditions for the operation of ABC for the asset quality management for ABC.
We'll continue to work on the developmental while manage the risk. Risk management always goes first. Also to provide support to the strategic development of China. We will be very stringent in terms of the customer and the lending underwriting. We'll continue to focus on the risk management in key areas. Based on what we have done last year, enhancing the key area management of the real estate sector and also to manage the large exposure with borrower-specific policies. For local government debt, we'll have a provincial-specific policy to mitigate the local government show debt. We are doing the sweeping risk health check of the large customers. We'll have a more proactive and a more smart risk management system. At the same time, we'll continue to enhance our risk management, inclusive finance, and retail business.
Next question, please.
Thank you.
Economic and daily. In the last two days, we mentioned the personal loan balance has reached RMB 9 trillion as a retail large bank. What are the development philosophy and strategy in retail business? Consumption stimulus is a very important national policy. Based on this macro policy background, what is the outlook and growth point of the retail business of ABC? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Thank you. Thank you very much for your interest in the retail business development of ABC. Retail business is related to the households and the people. Retail business is the most important part of inclusive finance. In recent years, ABC retail business, so we focus on high-quality development while complying with the one main business line and the two ones business model.
The main business line is they focus on customer management, large wealth management, and digitalization transformation are the two supportive pillars. Focus on the customer-oriented management operation and also focus on three transformations. First, the operation focus on the product itself to the customer management experience enhancement. For the management, so has been shifted from the traditional finance to new finance. Also operation method has been shifted to digital-driven. Focus or do a good job in the five key chapters of finance and provide service to domestic amount as well as consumption. That will have a reasonable volume growth as well as improvement of the service quality so as to refresh their brand of people's finance for the people. Last year, the personal loan customers exceeded 880 million. Personal loans financial asset scale exceeded CNY 32.3 trillion, maintaining a leading position among our peers.
For the whole year, the retail business income is RMB 390 billion or so. We have realized the fee income of retail business is RMB 40 billion or so. The personal loan deposit is around RMB 18.7 trillion. The interest, there has been five key indicators maintaining the top among the peers. For personal loans, have also been increased for five consecutive years, leading among our peers. For wealth management, private banking, credit card business, mobile phone business, these have also been maintained very good momentum. In terms of the channel integration and etc., we have also maintained new achievements in this aspect. Among the international authoritative assessment, Agricultural Bank of China has been for four consecutive years been awarded the top of the best retail banking. With China still, central government continued to promote consumption. We can see that many people are very pay a lot of interest in personal loans.
Now I'd like to introduce to you ABC's personal loan businesses. For personal loan business, we mainly focus on steady growth, expanding demand, improving people's welfare, and serve the rural region and regionalization. Also, we have wide coverage in terms of services. We actually achieve progress amid stability and also seek optimization of our business amid stability to satisfy customers' needs for consumption, the small and medium-sized enterprises, and private-owned businesses, their needs. Last year, we extended personal loans CNY 6.8 trillion, with a total share around 53% of the market. We can see there have been 9.4% in terms of the growth rate. NPL is 1.03%, provision coverage ratio 296%. Generally speaking, the asset quality remains stable. Also, about home loan, that is CNY 600 billion or so. For operational loan, CNY 3.2 trillion, increased by CNY 600 billion, or 35%.
Excluding credit card business, the residential consumption loans is around CNY 500 billion, increased by 39.8%. For credit card business, the increase is around CNY 150 billion. Increasing a lot. For credit card consumption, it exceeded CNY 2 trillion. NPL is around 1.46%, also leading among our peers, the best among our peers. We can see there has been good momentum in our economy. There have been favorable conditions which will actually enable us to better serve the real economy. Also from this year's development, we can see the personal loan business has actually been maintaining very good momentum. Previously, on March the 17th, you may know that we have already exceeded a certain number in our business. There is another information that has not been disclosed. Actually, our liability, the personal side, we are also the first to exceed CNY 19 trillion.
Up to now, we have accumulated, extended RMB 2.07 trillion in 2025. The focus of our personal loan business is on the following four aspects. The first one is to serve the customers with greater power. We also will implement a lot of the central government policies and further enrich or diversify our financial products to enhance the financial supply. We organize this credit backup or enhancement plan. Secondly, to ensure the resource guarantee. In terms of the loan maturity, the interest rate, we are trying to provide more convenience for them. Thirdly, we will try to incorporate this product plus ecology for key products. We will also try to do more in order to expand the new customer demands. Fourth is to serve the real economy, the private-owned enterprises, and the rural development.
On one hand, we implement the central government's policies on the private-owned enterprises, which is mainly to promote or uphold the philosophy of financial neutrality. On the other hand, we hope that through city plus county to promote and optimize the agro-related products to upgrade and iterate the product model and to strengthen or enhance the credit extension in this aspect. Thirdly, to improve the business processes. We will have the tailor-made policies provided to different regions and areas so as to improve our service to the small and medium-sized enterprises, private-owned enterprises, and etc. to improve the financial availability to them. Thirdly, to actively promote the recovery of the housing market.
Seizing the opportunity of the housing market development, we will try to actually provide and optimize our product policies and improve our services procedures so as to actually enhance the mortgage loans in both the first-time and second-time mortgages and to further seize the opportunity of the potentials of the housing market. Also, to balance the development and security, we will rely on the digitalization, the intelligent development so as to build a more secure or safer system. We will also strengthen risk management control and to improve the full process, full cycle risk management system so as to make it more effective and well-coordinated. Thirdly, for personal loan pricing, what's our comments on it? In terms of balancing development and security, we will stick to balance the management between pricing and quantity. We will also try to stick to the risk pricing policy.
For large bank, we should have our shoulder our responsibilities. We will try to maintain the benign development environment. We will try to ensure the authenticity in the loan extension. We know that if there is the real customer with real needs, then the risk can be controlled, actually. The key is to ensure the projects, the borrowers are real and authentic rather than there is fraud.
So much for me. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Next. The gentleman, please.
Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. My question is about non-interest income. We noticed last year the fee income is turning for the better. I'm wondering what's your expectation for it in 2025? Where are the growth points? For other non-interest income, they have also been growing really good. What's your expectation for that this year?
Thank you for your question. I would like to invite our Vice President to ask your question, Mr. Wang.
Thank you for your question. For 2024, Agricultural Bank of China has been serving the real economy and to stay customer-centered philosophy and to improve our comprehensive financial service. Also, we try to rise to the challenges of the financial volatilities or turmoil. As you mentioned, the net fee income is turning for the better. The total net income is 75.6%, although there has been a slight drop, but it is like two basis points drop from the previous quarter. In 2025, we will keep track of the market development. We will try to see the needs of customers in wealth management and provide them with integrated wealth management so as to promote the high-quality development of our non-interest income. Firstly, we will try to stick to consumption-oriented development.
We'll try to expand the consumption scenarios, deepen our cooperation with e-commerce platforms, and also to consolidate our valuation of our consumption-related business. Secondly, we will dynamically adjust our asset allocation and to enhance our revenue generation capabilities. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wang. We have a video. We have a question from a video analysis.
Thank you. I'm from Morgan Stanley. I'd like to ask a question about the county-level business, which is an advantage of ABC. For ABC, what kind of opportunities will such county-related business bring to ABC so as to maintain your advantage in the market? What can we do to better actually improve this business, this contribution to our profit? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. We'd like to invite Mr. Wang to ask your question. Thank you.
Thank you for your attention to the county-level related business. The total loans is RMB 9.85 trillion. The total increase in amount accounts for over half of the total incremental loans. That is 47% or so. In 2024, the agro loan growth is 36.6%. This is a really fast growth. Improve the integrated developmental areas in urban areas system, and also implementing the new type of urbanization strategy layout. The third plenum of the 2026 CBC MPT, otherwise the government will. This year have laid out important policy developments that have provided the business development of the county levels of Agricultural Bank of China. Those are the policy windows as well as very favorable market opportunities for Agricultural Bank of China.
First, the new matured customers, for example, like broadcasting, as well as rural-related tourism, as well as other experiences at ABC, have more opportunities, has more opportunities to combine with the new entities in the county levels and rural areas to grow together with them. Second, the new quality development of rural areas, for instance, special government bond and local government has gone into the high-standard farmland, as well as the urbanization of rural where the people living in the rural areas, and ABC will provide key areas of the rural revitalization. There is huge potential for us to develop. Also for the favorable policies and new to news as well major projects, for example, the EVs and smart home appliance, as well as rural area and tourism. This potential has been revitalized.
Also, the demand will be very huge in rural areas as a major state-owned bank providing service to rural revitalizations. Agricultural Bank of China will continue to force some businesses and also further tap into the rural areas and county areas and provide a better service, more focused, and more solid, and a more balanced service to rural areas. Now, we need to do our job well in the following four aspects. First, continue to enhance our financial supply in the county areas and implement the development policy of rural areas of the country and also provide financial resources to the county-level rural areas and also enhance the proportion of agro-related loans and provide service to the rural revitalization and also the comprehensive rural revitalization.
Provide the full life cycle supply chain and ultra-long-term government treasury bond and special government bond to sink down into the rural areas and also work strongly to consolidate our poverty alleviation work and also implement the no-refinancing policy and a balanced and strong support and also no systematic falling back to poverty to provide support to those people who have been alleviated out of poverty and also work comprehensively to provide consumption-targeted health assistance as well as talent support and also the coordination between the eastern coast area and the western area of China.
are also consolidating the key areas of financial service to revitalization, providing service to the high-standard farmland as well as model innovation in providing service to farm agricultural machines, and providing support to the full supply chain of agricultural development. We provide the dedicated financial service plan for the integrated development of rural areas and urban areas, and also provide credit support to the batched, chained, and group-based service model to provide the new product forces of the agricultural areas. We will continue to focus on the channel person to sink down to the county and rural areas, and the newly built outlets will be moved or tilted to the rural areas. We will also explore the mobile, roaming, or flow-on service outlets and upgrade our Huilongtong service models, providing financial service to the township areas.
Also enhance the county or the CRM team building in providing service to rural areas to enhance the capacity and the level and the standards of ABC in providing service to the rural areas. Thank you. Next question, please. In the front row. Thank you for the finance. Now, with the application of technology with the business operation of the bank, my question is in the smart bank development, are there any new progress? Last year, ABC rolled out the AI plus development measures. In AI and smart bank building, are there key outlines or key strategies? Thank you for the question. I'll take this question.
ABC continues to promote the smart bank development as well as integrate into the Digital China Development Initiative and also enhance the application of AI and accelerate development of technology digital management of the bank and also improve the quality and efficiency of digital finance. The initial results have been achieved in four areas. First, digital products and the scenario ecosystem has been improved. For example, Nouyi Loan has been increased in terms of the scale by the end of last year. Nouyi Loan balance was CNY 5.73 trillion and increased 34.8% from the year beginning of 2024. Also pulled out a Wijia Loan, 3-0, and as the Torch Loan as well as other creative products and also online finance and smart parks and pension financial service and also deepen our service in the healthcare government service as well as other scenarios.
Also financial service digitalization in the financial service in the rural areas by the end of 2024, Huilongyi balance of CNY 1.5 trillion. We upgraded Huilongyi loan service and we increased grain, cotton, tobacco, as well as hospitality as well as other data and to creatively roll out a series of products into the farmers. We also have the ABC Huilong cloud service platform by the end of last year. This platform has 260. Matched to the Harmony OS system and rolled out a 10.1 system and MAU for personal banking to 115 million. This is a leading among our peers. We also improved the super work desk of CRM and also provide service to the mobile working and also provide all of the demand of our CRMs and provide a better service to our customers and also have our mobile or the centralized handling process.
We have around centralized 21 businesses which can save around 140,000 working hours of our workers. The digital base as well as the technology base has been further improved. We enhanced the enterprise-level digital assets organization and also built a tagging center, decision engine, as well as other digital tools and lowered down the threshold of digital application. We also strengthened the technology security management and built our basic algorithm as well as the maintenance of production and the cybersecurity management to enhance the business continuity. Your second question is about the AI plus one policy. AI plus policy. AI now is a hot topic now. This policy rolled out by Agricultural Bank of China has described the integration between AI and the banking system, including the roadmap measures as well as strategies.
There are two ways out, eight areas, six aspects, and three phases. This is the systematic layout to deploy AI plus work. To be more specific, first, scenario development to build eight smart areas. We focus on improving efficiency, quality, lower down the costs, as well as enhance risk prevention, use the digital sensitivity of AI to provide decision-making, as well as the content generation support in credit management and risk management channel operation, as well as marketing and maintenance and work space. In those eight scenarios, we deploy the AI plus application, enhancing the content operation as well as service to our customers to provide a service to the high-quality development of the bank. We systematically build and implement AI plus the whole scenario application on six aspects.
We build ABC application of system of AI business to accommodate or adapt to the changes brought by AI to build robot handlers plus manual processing. In digital application, we use high-quality data as well as the knowledge process to lay the foundation for the deep and comprehensive application of AI and also build accommodative or compatible AI computing infrastructure, build AI plus data-driven structure in model. We build multi-mode and multi-type model matrix and build a one-stop model development and maintenance and monitoring so that the multi-decision-making as well as operating model in terms of security, we build AI application. Security model, security, data security, and application security system to ensure the data will go out of the domain, the model will not be connected to the internet.
In terms of ecosystem, based on the smart bank development, we enhance open development as well as promote the AI application in the financial sector. We have our phase-based development. By the end of 2025, the middle of 2027, and the end of 2029 will be three milestones to implement this policy. According to the time schedule, with the high-performance model, DeepSeek rolled out and the financial sector also paid a lot of attention to this. ABC also followed very closely to this. We have the integration of DeepSeek in the bank, for example, smart workplace and smart marketing. We have applied DeepSeek, and the initial results have been achieved. Looking forward, we will, based on the guidance of this policy, form AI multi-scenario, deep and wide application, and further provide strong support to the development of ABC. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Wang, for your explanation of the smart bank development of ABC. Next question, please.
Thank you. Zhongxing Securities Analysis. I have a major part of pension finance. We've noticed that aging population is a feature of China, and that is broad in the opportunities for the pension finance of financial institutions. In providing service, doing a good job in the key five chapters finance, what are the measures in pension finance, and what are the key work areas in terms of pension finance?
Thank you for the question. I'll give the floor to Mr. Lin to take this question.
Thank you for the question. For doing a good job in the 5K chapter three aspects. First, value-driven. We implement people-centered value.
First, enhance the three pillars of pension fund coverage, ABC outlets, as well as the real social insurance, as well as the 280 million, 180 million, and 70 million. Leading among the peers in terms of the fiscal social insurance card and healthcare QR code, as well as the area scale in those pension fund areas, has been growing rapidly to 24% and 34.4%. We actively promote and store the pillar three pension fund, and we have provided service for 24 million. We enhanced the operating of the infrastructures and formulated the dedicated work plan and invested in the ring-fenced fund. We have 20, all of the outlets have been upgraded to make it elderly-friendly. We have built almost 300 age-friendly outlets. Thirdly, we will promote the economic development.
The head office have issued 12 differentiated credit policies in terms of pension finance, the credit approval, pricing, performance evaluation. We will actually have certain consideration in terms of the policy side. For pension loans, it is around RMB 11 billion, up by 68%, among which for private-owned enterprises accounts for 61%. We can see that the private enterprises have actually played a very important role in the pension finance area. ABC has supported the pension-related fund investment, equity investments, exceeding RMB 21.6 billion. We need to strengthen the reform-driven and focus on innovation just to serve the needs of the customers in terms of financial, in terms of the pension finance. We hope that we can make progress in this aspect. In the past year, for offline, online, we've accepted 100 million of customers for such services.
Our hotline has also been trying to offer the one-click transfer service for the customers. In terms of mobile banking, we also have this online finance plus non-finance scenario service philosophies. Also, considering Agricultural Bank of China's philosophy, we have Huilongtong service station. This actually is located in different villages and counties. We have launched different types of products in order to meet customers' needs in this aspect. For digital-driven, we will keep customers centered and use AI and also data to promote the digital development of the pension finance. We will try to build the intelligent pension homes, and we would like to actually implement this smart or intelligent pension system. We will take into consideration the features of the life stage and the needs. We have 16 subgroups in terms of the product configuration.
Also, for staff and experts in digital cloud, which is one clear, which means if you ask them, then you will get to understand quickly. We will have such staff help us to actually better serve the customers. Going forward, we will continue to be dedicated to promote the full product development and the full coverage. We would like to serve our customers through multiple dimensions. We think it is a very full and comprehensive, extensive coverage to our customers. We would like to join hands with the public to better build a community for the elderly, to provide quality service for them, to improve their experiences, so as to improve service in this aspect. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Lin, for your answer or responses. The next question, please.
Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity.
I would like to ask not long ago, we have this seminar on private enterprises by the central government. We know that private enterprises and small mid-sized enterprises account for 90% of our economy, and ABC has been leading for us in serving these two groups. I'm wondering, last year, in terms of financial inclusion and serving the private enterprises, what have you done? Also for this year, what is your targets and strategies for serving this group of customers? Thank you. Thank you for your question.
President Liu, please.
Thank you. Thank you for your question. For ABC, we implement the spirit of the central government meetings and also the financial work conference. We implement the policy to serve the rural economy and the real economy and to also deepen the agro-related development.
Specifically, we will try to be better adapted to improve our service in serving the small and medium-sized enterprises and also to meet the diversified financing needs and also to improve the financial affordability and availability issue. For ABC, our loan balance is CNY 6.5 trillion. Financial inclusion loans, CNY 4.6 trillion. We can see that this loan has been growing a lot. For the borrowers for small and medium enterprises, it has increased by 104 borrowers. For private-owned enterprise, their loan balance is CNY 6.53 trillion by CNY 1.08 trillion. We are also trying to better coordinate our service for these two customer groups. We will look at different indicators, and these indicators also rank top among our peers. Recently, we have also been implementing the spirit of President Xi Jinping in this private-owned business seminar.
For private-owned enterprises, their loan growth has been increasing compared with year beginning. The loans have also exceeded the RMB 7 trillion threshold. Financial inclusion loans have also exceeded the RMB 5 trillion threshold. The borrowers have also exceeded 5 million. For these two types of loans, we have the largest coverage. The sustainable development of these two businesses has also been strengthening. In 2025, we will continue to implement the important spirit of President Xi Jinping and also the guiding opinions of the State Council in improving five priorities in the financial sector. We'll do the following work. First, focus on the key areas to strengthen credit extension, especially for the private enterprises and also the financial inclusion or SMEs. We believe that the loans to private enterprises will exceed RMB 7.5 trillion.
We will also focus on rural rejuvenation, expand domestic demand, and boost consumption and serve and improve the financial availability and accessibility in key areas. We will also try to promote the coordination mechanism with the housing market and also make private enterprises, fintech, foreign trade enterprises be included into the SME. We will also expand the service coverage for them. In addition, we will also have dedicated credit resources. We will have more granulized pricing capabilities and improve the non-principal payment policy and also for SMEs, we are trying to provide them with fast-track or convenient services. On the other hand, in terms of the service model innovation and also the system development and talent training, we will improve our service capabilities to private enterprises and SMEs just to improve our service for them. Thirdly, we will have this bottom line philosophy to strengthen risk management control.
We will also promote risk provision and also to promote our growth so as to seek a new model in this aspect for Agricultural Bank of China. We will also consolidate the risk management control foundation and also to ensure compliance and risk management.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Now we have this opportunity to the online participants. Please, the working staff, choose a question that is of public concern or interest. I would like to announce the internet questions. The first one is fintech. Fintech is actually a very important aspect. In 2024, what is the fintech development? Going forward, how can we better support technology companies or tech companies?
Still, Mr. Liu, please. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. For fintech or technology innovation, it is quite important. It also plays a very important role in the development of modern enterprises.
ABC is a large state-owned enterprise in China, so we are also a leading force in serving the real economy. We will try to follow the general layout, and also we will make it a strategic priority for us. We also allocate a lot of resources to it, and we have differentiated supporting policies as well. By the end of 2024, the strategic emerging industry loans is around RMB 2.6 trillion, up by around RMB 470 billion. Growth rate is 2.2%. Compared with the other loan growth, it is 12.3 percentage points higher. We will also try to build the integrated service system. We will try to follow these 19 scientific innovation centers and also try to build. We have the special team and department and also specific dedicated technology sub-branches and etc. in order to actually invest enough resources in this aspect. Our technological outlet is around 300 or so.
We will also improve our service capabilities and model. We focus on the key enterprises and also try to innovate the dedicated credit service system, optimize customer assessment or evaluation. For different customers, we will offer diversified financing products. We will try to serve the technology companies throughout the life cycle. We have also launched a series of detailed rules, strengthened the performance appraisal, and also put in place a lot of mechanisms in place so as to improve the service quality for them. By the end of 2024, the total loan borrowers exceeded RMB 2.4 trillion. We can see there has been fast growth. That is like 90% or so. For equity investment supply, we know that actually credit service is advantageous for commercial banks, but actually tech companies also have interest in equity investment.
We were trying to cover our customers in this aspect to gradually establish a dedicated team in this aspect. We have 18 trial or pilot cities. We have signed the framework agreement with them. In Suzhou, Hangzhou, and etc., we will continue to accelerate the establishment of fund and also the project launch. The fourth one is agro-related development or technology. We will still focus on the key areas in agro-related business so as to strengthen credit support and integrated services. We also have plans in place so as to better serve the agro-related economy through technology innovation. We have also been awarded one of the 10 innovation models in China.
For the agriculture tech parks, we rolled out the agricultural park loan products. Also for the first batch of customers, we have already granted the loans to them.
Looking forward to be so well-focused on the financial service, high-quality service-related technology development, and provide a service to development of the technology in the country as a whole and also optimize our portfolio's offering. Also leverage on AI and the big data to cultivate expertise and personnels to enhance our service in financing support and to the tech companies as well as other financial services. First, promote the high quantity of the financing. In 2025, we'll have the dedicated policies and also provide more resources so that the water of the finance will be flown to the tech companies and also promote the credit granting as well as the equity investment. Also improve the quality of the financial service.
This year, we have optimized the fintech organization based on a three-tiered service network and provide a dedicated financial service plan to the tech companies and different levels to provide the service personnels that are knowing technology as well as have a finance background so as to make the financial service more convenient to the tech companies. We also enhance the coverage of financial service. ABC, based on the different kinds of development stage of the financial needs of the companies, provide more suitable offerings to the companies and also promote the online dedicated online credit products for tech companies. We also provide the individual personal financial services to the people working in the tech companies for the investment, bank, and consulting as well as other whole package financial service so as to make the financial service more inclusive to the fintech companies. We will build an ecosystem.
ABC will build a systematic philosophy so that the tech companies will play a very major role in innovation. We'll work with the research institute, equity investment funds, as well as the other universities so that we'll build upon the synergy to provide a full lifecycle comprehensive financial service to the tech companies. Thank you for the answering. We have a very productive session for enhancing the pricing management and realize the assets and liability coordinated development in terms of the quantity and pricing looking towards 2025. Macro speaking, the support and fundamentals of the economy to going for a sound way will not change, but there are also externalities. For example, weak domestic demand as well as other potential risks are still there. The business operation of commercial banks are facing some challenges. In 2025, the NIM of the banking industry will still be under pressure.
For ABC, the change of NIM will also be the same or similar within the banking industry. In terms of the change of the NIM, because in 2024, the existing lower downward the interest rate of housing loans as well as the downward movement of LPR and also the yield on loan will also be going down. On the other hand, the liberalization of a deposit interest rate has also been paid off. There will also be room for the lowering down of interest paid on deposits. In the liabilities side, also the interest of paid on loans will also be moving down. Finance are living together with the economy. The minimum of the bank is still the way for the bank to yield the interest or concession to the economy.
While at the same time, we'll also balance the sustainable development of the bank with the development and moving upward and rally up of the economy. The NIM of the bank will also bounce back and maintain a stable level. In 2025, ABC will be more proactively concession to the economy while at the same time benchmarking to combine with the demand of the economy, optimize our balance sheet structure and continue to enhance the management of our balance sheet structure and also enhance the sustainability of providing service to the real economy. To be more specific in the asset side, we'll continue to do a good job in balancing the volume, pricing, and risk management.
As the leaders said, the county level area and the 5K chapters of finance will enhance the balance sheet structure and also enhance the proportion of the high-yield assets and also enhance the effectiveness and targetness of the pricing to balance the structure as well as the volume. Balancing the pricing and volume in terms of liability with the digital management to enhance the grouping management and discriminate management of the customer bases so as to give more resources with low cost and also leverage on the liberalization of the interest rate and also optimize the term structure of loans and also to lower down the cost of deposits in terms of portfolios offering when enhancing the dynamic management of asset liability using the volume as well as pricing tools to coordinate the duration and structure of assets.
The interest rate risk and FX risk as well as managed liquidity risk to enhance the yield. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your participation in the 2024 annual results announcement of Agricultural Bank of China. Thank you, investors, analysts, and friends from the media for your long-term support and interest in the development of Agricultural Bank of China. Thank you very much for the senior management of Agricultural Bank of China for your interpretation and sharing of the results. If you have any questions, please contact our investor relations team as well as our media or press team. With that, I'll draw today's announcement conference to a close. Please leave from the conference room from the right side of the conference room. Thank you very much.