Dear friends from the media, good afternoon. Welcome. Bank of China 2021 Interim Announcement. My name is Mei Feiqi, Party Secretary of BoC. Today, I myself and the spokesperson of Bank of China and the General Manager of President Office will co-host this meeting. First of all, I would like to introduce the leaders to you. They are Vice Chairman of BoC, President Liu Jin, Executive Director, EVP, Mr. Wang Wei, Executive Director, EVP, Mr. Lin Jingzhen, EVP, Mr. Zheng Guoyu, EVP, Mr. Chen Huaiyu, EVP, Mr. Wang Zhiheng, Chief Information Officer, Mr. Liu Qiuwan, and Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Liu Jiandong. Because of the pandemic control concerns, this interim announcement is convened via video conference. We will first give the floor to Mr. Liu, President of the bank, to introduce you 2021 Interim Results of the bank. Then we will have question and answers.
For a long period of time, dear friends from the media, investors and analysts have paid continuous attention, support to the bank. We are deeply impressed by your support, and we have many investors or customers looking at our press conference online. Thank you for your efforts, and thank you for your attention to BOC. Now, I want to give the floor to Mr. Liu, President of the bank, to introduce you about the interim results of the bank and the key works progress and also our plan for the future.
Thank you, Mr. Mei. Dear investors, analysts, friends from the media, good afternoon. Since the pandemic started, we have convened our result announcement in such a video conference way for many times. We previously hoped to have on-site press release. However, many things changed our plan.
Because of the pandemic situation, we can only convene our press release in such an online way. In March, we have made announcement about annual results. I have introduced to all of you that we are at the starting year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, Bank of China started a new phase of development, We have started a new journey to establish a global level, first-level modernized banking group. Half a year have elapsed. I'm very confident to introduce you the interim result of Bank of China. We have made a steady progress on many fronts. We have enjoyed high-quality growth. First of all, the data we released today shows that we have a steady growth of fiscal results. Realized operating revenue, CNY 302.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.53%. After-tax profit and profit attributable to shareholders increased by 9.96% and 11.79% respectively. Operating efficiency increased continuously.
ROE increased 0.87 percentage point, reached 11.97%. Cost-income ratio was 24.06%, a reduction of 2.67 percentage points. Asset and liability scale increased steadily. Total asset exceeded CNY 26 trillion, an increase of 7.85%. Loan amount grew by 8.644%, and also, the amount of loan to total asset reached 57.80%, an increase of 0.43 percentage point. Domestic RMB loan enjoyed faster growth, long-term and mid-term loans percentage increased. Total liability increased by 8.31%, and domestic and foreign Forex deposit increased, and we have made record deposit growth. Risk control efficiency have increased. Non-performing loan, special mention loan amount and ratio enjoyed a double reduction, and the provision coverage ratio increased 6.42 percentage point to 184.26%. We have generated capital internally, and we have supplement our capital externally. Capital adequacy ratio increased. Bank of China's market influence further increased. We have won many rewards.
The external credit rating of Bank of China remain among the highest within Chinese banks. We also achieve good result in other aspects. We have support real economy. Domestic RMB loan increased by CNY 863.2 billion, record high. Investment in local government bond, CNY 246.4 billion, and our market share increased. Inclusive of loans grow by 35.8%, and we have achieved to increase, control requirements of the regulator. Strategic new emerging industry, green financing also increased. We have increased our lending to manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, long-term and mid-term manufacturing loan increased by 18.4%, and we also get deeply involved in reform and opening up. International settlement growth by 45.34%, and ranked as number one in the market. Cross-border RMB clearing amount increased by 35.4%, number one among the world. We also help customer to issue bond, and we participate in the Belt and Road project.
We facilitate the development of offshore RMB bond market. We focus on One Body, Two Wings strategy. In the past half a year, our domestic commercial banks are developing in a good manner, while domestic and foreign currency deposit increased. One Body, this is our cornerstone, this is further consolidated. For overseas deposit and lending, they increased by 13.86%, 11.95% year-on-year. We further enhance intensive management. We have one policy for each bank in overseas regions. We further optimize our service networks and online channels. We further enhance our management of integrated operations. We have set up integrated operation coordination office in certain branches to enhance customer referral and resources sharing. We focus on development of key projects and key businesses. Personal banking contribution and the market competitiveness increased.
The number of effective individual customers reached 321 million accounts, also customer financial assets exceeded CNY 11 trillion. Domestic individual account operating revenue, non-interest income contribution reached 48.78%, 56.82% respectively, the number of medium to high-end customers increased by fast manner, while consumer finance further increased digitalization and other scenarios. Credit card installment grew by a good margin, corporate accounts also enjoyed enhanced marketing and services capabilities. The number of corporate accounts increased by 19.89%, the total financial corporate assets increased by 6.58% year-on-year. Also, deposit from government agencies increased, pension further developed. We also update our inclusive finance. We also promoted digital financing. Fourthly, we further promoted digitalization of the bank. We focus on two projects. One is enterprise-level architecture establishment, one is data governance. We focus on five capabilities.
That is enhancing customer experience, sharing product and services, and optimize business process, enhance risk control, and enabling our staff at various levels. We are making progress in scenario development and technology enablement. In July, we have issued the 7th version of mobile banking, and we further provide special services like more scenarios in life, wealth management and Winter Olympics. Fifthly, we further enhance risk management. We further strengthen our comprehensive risk management system and also achieve digitalization in risk management. In the first half, we followed the 14th Five-Year Plan of the country and of the bank. We developed eight major finance projects, optimized credit structure and strengthened our credit approval management. We focus on risk control in key areas, optimize our NPL resolution and asset quality continuously consolidated.
For various risk indicators, we have satisfied the regulators' requirements by continuously improvement of our liquidity risk warning systems and stress testing. Since the beginning of last year, we began to focus on top design and grassroots draft plans. We have started the combining of 14th Five-Year Plan. We pay attention to our alignment with the national strategy. After several rounds of discussion and revision, this plan have been printed out to guiding the group. We will further use our 14th Five-Year Plan as the blueprint to guide the development of commercial bank and guide our globalization and also integration. To turn ourself into a global first-level modern banking group with activity, agility, and making breakthrough in key areas. In the next steps, we will make breakthrough in the following areas. One is promoting One Body, Two Wings and develop.
Second is to follow the rules of economic social development and make economic transition and promote eight major financial area. Thirdly, promoting digitalization. Fourthly is to coordinate development and security, focus on risk management. Fifthly, we will seek growth among transition and among changes, and we will build a better culture. Bank of China will make steady ahead and try to implement the 14th Five-Year Plan, and try to connect the world and creating benefits for the society, turn ourselves into first-level modern bank, and to make our contribution to the rejuvenation of Chinese nation.
Thank you, Mr. Liu, for your speech. Now we have question and answer. We first give the question. We give the floor to investors and analysts. Every one of you can only ask one question. Please identify yourself before asking questions. Now we get connected with the first question. Now the first question to be asked.
Thank you. The floor is yours.
Thank you. For giving me this opportunity. I am from Morgan Stanley. My name is Xu Yan. People pay more attention to credit growth and credit breakdown. In the first half of the year, Bank of China enjoyed rather fast credit growth to support economic recovery. Can the management introduce us corporate lending growth, and also the lending breakdown? What is your plan for the next half of the year? Recently, we are seeing central bank convening meetings with commercial banks about the next year's plan. The next half year's plan. I want to know your plan.
Thank you for your question. Credit business has attracted attention from the market, and the credit business is an important business of Bank of China. The floor is given to Mr. Lin Jingzhen, EVP of the bank.
Thank you. Thanks to our friends from Morgan Stanley for your question. Yes, as we all know, for banks, we play a very important role in terms of promoting social economic developments and in terms of improving people's livelihood. For our bank at BOC, we have been catching up with the pace of the time. We have been serving the national strategies. We have been supporting the tangible economic development. In the first half of this year, BOC has implemented the government policies for six protections and the six stabilities. We have lent more to inclusive finance, green finance, strategic new industries manufacturing, et cetera, according to the coordinated green innovative principles, especially for key areas and for key industries, they have got more lending from the BOC.
By the end of June, the domestic corporate loans balance was CNY 7.1 trillion, up by CNY 631 billion as compared with the end of last year. All representing an increase rate of 9.72%, hitting the record high. In terms of the recipients, lately, our lending has been going to inclusive finance, green finance, strategic new industries, and manufacturing. For the regulators' requirements, we lent CNY 780 billion, up by CNY 200 billion to those key industries. For strategic new industries, the lending were CNY 407 billion, up by CNY 180 billion as compared with the end of last year, representing increase rate of 8.35%. For manufacturing, the lending increased by 18.4%-25%. Private sector loans up by CNY 138 billion or 7.9%. The increases rate often have hit the record. In terms of geographic coverages, we have supported the key geographic developments programs.
By the end of June to the Yangtze River Delta, we lent CNY 196 billion to the Beijing-Tianjin and Hebei, CNY 68 billion to the Greater Bay, CNY 105 billion. The increase of lending to these key areas was 10.3%, much higher than the average. For the branches in 56 key cities, the lending was CNY 4.8 trillion. In the second half of this year, BOC will continue to implement the government's requirements, and we will follow the 14th Five-Year Plan. We will maintain the reasonable growth rate of the corporate lending. That's in line with the government's policies for new development landscape and the two circulations. We will also lend more to foreign trade, so that foreign trade companies can have more orders that could control risks, especially to the SMEs in the foreign trade.
We will give them more lending support, and we will also work with insurance and other industries. For export financing, it will have a greater coverage. We will also have more online and scenario-based services. Second, we will also give more lending to the key projects in key areas. According to the 14th Five-Year Plan, there are 102 major projects. There are also local governments major infrastructure projects in terms of 5G and ultra-high voltage power transmission, et cetera. For the new strategic industries such as biomedicine, new materials, et cetera, they will also get more of our support. For aviation aircraft, the railway and other infrastructure projects, they will also get more of our support. Transport and communication is very important, and we also serve the national interest in the area of energy and green developments.
For the eight financial service areas, we will develop new business models. We will have a high quality growth of the corporate lending. We will also make use of our fintechs and our comprehensive services so that we can provide all necessary services to companies throughout their life cycle. We will accelerate green finance to be an important player of eco-civilization. For the green transport, clean energy conservation and efficiency, and industrial value chain, and they will become our priorities. We will have more integration with these strategic industries. Also, we will further promote overseas financial services developments in terms of structured financing, international settlements, and trade financing. We will play a bigger role in terms of financial innovation along the Belt and Road Initiative. Thank you.
Thank you, our president. The next question. Yes, we have the next question. The floor is open. Yes.
I'm very happy about this opportunity. I'm from Xiantao Strategic Investment. I have a question about the wealth management. It's a very broad concept, so many analysts are very interested. Our people also have a higher demand and expectation of wealth management. The country also has reiterated the national strategy of a common prosperity. I believe major banks like BOC have an important role to play, and banks also, I think, are in the right light to transition. Many banks take management personally, very seriously.
For BOC I think has a strong foundation in terms of personal finance and wealth management. In recent years, you also have carried out a lot of reforms, a lot of attention from the markets. For personal finance and in particular the wealth management business, I would like to know the progress so far this year. I also want to know your future targets, strategies, et cetera. This is my question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ma. Yes, you are right. For personal finance, especially wealth management, it is very important because the Communist Party's principle is common prosperity. Common prosperity for all people is our national strategy. I give the floor to VP Zheng.
Yes. I would like to thank the friend from Strategic Construction Investment Company. BOC has put clients in the first place and has implemented the national strategy of common prosperity by value creation. Our reforms in personal finance have unleashed the department's potentials and have realized high quality developments of wealth management. First, the returns are significantly increased. For the bank, our revenues from wealth management increased by 25% in the first half of this year, the fastest among the Big Four.
For our clients, the returns from these investments also outperformed the market. In the past 1 year, the equity funds, products, and the portfolios had a return rate of 38.8%, much higher than the industry average, and also the highest among the Big Four. Thus, our wealth management products have created value for our clients. Second, the scale is increasing very fast. For the whole group, the financial assets with us from the personal clients are more than CNY 11 trillion. The growth rate is the highest among the Big Four. For our private banking clients, their financial assets with us are more than CNY 2 trillion. The growth rate of the number of medium to high clients and the amount of financial assets also are the highest in the past three years. Second, optimize the structure.
For the asset structure, we are the only bank among the Big Four to have a positive growth of the investment financial asset. The investment asset proportion increased by 0.7 percentage points as compared with the end of last year. There is also optimization of the structure of our clients. The growth rate of wealth management clients is higher by 5 percentage points. Thirdly, digitalization. We have released Bank of China Mobile Banking version 7.0. We have upgraded the wealth and the fund management channels.
We have the exclusive zone for private banking. In the first half of this year, the Bank of China Mobile Banking App investment and wealth management clients in terms of their numbers, increased by 10.81%. For the Bank of China Smart Investment service, it has a 2.0 version. It has sold products worth CNY 29.6 billion with the total number of clients more than CNY 250,000.
The return rate is 41.68% higher, 27.4 percentage points higher than the industry average. We will continue to implement the 14th Five-Year Plan to serve national interest, tangible economy, and the people's livelihoods by the digitalization asset lights and the professional strategies. We will also push forward the development of the wealth management cross-border financing and consumer financing. According to the requirements of the 10th Meeting of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Committee, we will continue to put clients in the first place by creating more value creation with the Bank. We will promote development of inclusive financing to provide more wealth management services in the primary distribution, secondary distribution, and the third distribution. We will make use of think more scenarios and settings, as well as the better integrate financial and non-financial services.
We have the six sellers markets through the buyers, improve the product competitiveness and the client return rates. We also switch from single products to product portfolios so that with the BOC Smart Investment, we will be able to provide differentiated asset allocation. We will also switch from the trading driving to all journey service driving. That's to say, we are the advisors and the consultants for our long-term clients. Also we will make our team more professional. We will increase their capability and capacity. Fifthly, we will switch from more offline marketing to online marketing. With our mobile phone banking, we will embed more settings and the scenarios, the channels in the mobile phone banking. The mobile phone banking can also provide smart marketing, smart risk management, and other capabilities.
The sixth, also, we will make a full use of the BOC advantage as a global comprehensive banking group. We have the Asia Pacific region private banking platform and BOC International. They can help provide technical, professional, comprehensive, and global financial services to high-net-worth clients. Thank you.
We will have the next question.
Yes. I'm very happy about this opportunity. I have noticed that in your financial statements, you have a good growth of the brokerage and the commission, the agency fees. The NIM is under stress. I want to have the elaboration and your next steps. Can you also give us the forward-looking statement? Brokerage and the commission agency fees and the NIM.
Yes, thank you. I could see that for our midterm financial statements, you also have pointed out the very important highlights. Now I give the floor to VP Wang.
He will answer the question. Yes, thank you. Thank you for your interest in these. In the first half of this year, these fees were CNY 46.8 billion, up by 11.93% year-over-year. They accounted for 15.46% of the group total operating revenues. The ratio was up by 0.88 percentage points. Mainly for the domestic fund sales, wealth management, Internet payment, custodian services, and overseas brokerage fees. They are the highlights. They have contributed the most to our increase of brokerage and agency commissions and fees. We will enhance our innovation and try to meet the demands of the market as well as the demands of the consumers and their investment demands. We will try to increase a steady growth of the fee-based income revenue, and we also need to enhance our international settlement as well as the selling and buying of the foreign exchange.
Those are the traditional business, and we will consolidate our strengths. The second one is we need to grasp the opportunity of deepening the market reform and try to use this opportunity to address consumers' demands for investment. We will just increase the quality of our products, for example, fund service, asset management, and as well as custodial business. The third one is to address the digitalization of the economic development. Based on different scenario, we will have the multi measures for the customer acquisition, customer retaining. Also, we will just enhance the increase of our online revenue generation. That's about the fee income. As for NIM related business, in the first half, the NIM is 1.76%, nine basis points lower than the previous year. The major reasons are as follow. First one is the interest rate is decreasing at the market level.
The last year's LPR has been decreased. We also have the repricing of the loan, which are matured. All these are the negative factors influencing our use of the NIM, because the use of those loans decreased, therefore, the NIM is decreasing during the past few months. We will just try to take some measures to reduce the impacts. We will have a dynamic adjustment of our operation. We will optimize our asset structure. For example, in terms of the pricing and volume, we will just increase those two. We will try to expand the low-cost.
Fundraising sources try to control it. In particular, control the cost at the reasonable level. We will also try to satisfy the comprehensive financing demands and increase our mid- and long-term loan disbursement. During the first half, you can see that we have 1.77% compared with the previous half. During the second half, we expect more pressure for NIM increase, and we will prepare for that in a proactive manner. We will try to balance the deposit volume as well as price, and we will increase the demand deposits proportion, try to control and develop the demand deposits in a quality manner. Also, we will try to increase the proportion of mid- and long-term loans and try to increase our capacity for pricing, and then improve the NIM in the future half. Thank you.
Thank you. Let me add a few words.
First of all, I'd like to ask your question. You raised a very good question, and your question is a praise for BOC's performance during the past six months. As you mentioned, we have good fee-based business performance, but NIM is not that satisfactory. Where do we get NIM? That is the difference between the deposit and the lending. For the deposits market, we do not have a big difference in terms of the interest rate and the liability of BOC is not changing either. NIM is under pressure, is because we actually try to support the real economy. We actually sacrifice some of our profits to support the small and medium-sized enterprises. Next one.
Based on the EVP Wang's answer, we will try to have better performance in terms of the volume and pricing of the deposit, and we will do better job for NIM during the following half year. Also, we believe that with the recovery of Chinese economy, the economic fundamentals will be better. We will improve our business, reflecting that better recovery. We will also respond to our national strategy to support the real economy. We believe that we will have better performance in terms of NIM. As for fee-based business, we have the 11.9% increase, and we will do our best to increase the fee-based business.
We also switch to the retail as well as the corporate lending, and I believe that in all these areas, the fee-based business will have better performance, in particular in terms of the transformation of the retail business. We have the Mobile Banking 7.0 launched a few days ago, a few weeks ago. This is a very good news for BOC. This is a great means for BOC to acquire customer. We can also, through this channel, provide better services and products. Of course, at the same time, both BOC benefits, because we'll have more fee collected through this business. Recently, for the private banking customers, we also have in-depth research and analysis. Also, we have the more than 100,000 private banking customers and more than 20,000 private banking customers.
They are high net worth customers. We can see a higher percentage or proportion of the high net worth customers. We will dig deeper in terms of their potential, in terms of how we can improve our service quality. We believe that we will have more income generated from fee-based business. We are very confident about the future. Thank you.
Thank you, President Wang, and also thank you, President Liu, for your Next question. You can raise your question. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm from Bloomberg News. My name is Li Jing. My question is related with green financing. This year, our country proposed target for carbon neutral and carbon peak. For our society, this is the system transformation. Of course, it will have a new requirement for banking business and it, at the same time, bring opportunities.
I noticed that BOC has already integrated green financing as one of our eight major areas for our 14th Five-Year Plan. Would you give us the introduction about the green financing development during the first half, and also what are the concrete plan and targets for BOC's 14th Five-Year Plan? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Green financing is a very hot topic all over the world. BOC prioritize green financing in our strategic development, and also this is the very macro question. I would like to give the floor to President Liu to answer your question. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. With the 2030, 2060's carbon neutral and carbon peak target. The peaking and the neutral of carbon is not a concept there. It already turned to action.
BOC proposed green finance as our top priority and try to support the development of green financing in BOC. Last time, I gave you the introduction of the eight major area for BOC to develop in the future. First one is the science and technology. The second one is green financing. We also in the first half, we have a leader group for the development of green financing and the green fintech. The Chairman is the group leader. We have already uplifted the committee of green financing in terms of the administrative level. I, myself, as the President of BOC, is the leader of this committee, and to coordinate the group level green financing related work.
We know BOC is a commercial bank, and we also will play our strength of globalization and comprehensive business to try to promote green finance and try to build this One Body, Two Wings. By the end of June, our balance of green finance has exceeds RMB 1 trillion and it grows further. In the first half, in order to implement the green bonds issuance, we have reviewed the credit structure of BOC, in particular for the key grant in terms of their plan for the green bonds issuance. We have certain review and adjustments. During the first half, in terms of the issuance, we ranked number one for the green bond issuance, and we have issued RMB 50.9 billion and BOC underwriting RMB 20.97 billion, ranking number one among our competitors. We support the Three Gorges Group to issue their carbon neutral bonds.
We have also dual currency first in the public bond issuance for the transformation, and is CNY 1.8 billion and $500 million, respectively. We work with the Kazakhstan Power Group for the M&A, and BOC's role is the consultant. We also try to enhance our international cooperation. This year, BOC has become TCFD's supporting bank, and we also participate in the China and [Britain] Financial Institution Climate and Environmental Information [List] Pivoting Group . We participate those, the carbon peak and the carbon neutral work actively. We also try to implement the Green Investment Principle. We also work with ICMA, in 2020 and 2021, the Green Bonds issuance and also, we participate in the corporate social responsibility bond issuance guideline formulation. All these are our participation and with the international partners.
With such participation and roles played, we improve the image of BOC in the international market. These are the BOC's globalization strength. When we talk about One Body, Two Wings, we have another strength, which is the comprehensive business strength. We try to improve the green products as well as our comprehensive service provision level. We work with the China Securities Index Company to issue the 300 ESG. We also with the BOC Wealth Management, we have issued our first carbon peak, low carbon wealth management products. It's a series of products to support the low carbon development. 37% of the leasing asset are green asset. We also consider green financing as our strategic focus. We have our BOC's 14th Five-Year Plan, Green Financing Strategy. During the 14th Five-Year Plan, we try to implement this low carbon idea. Not only idea, but also action.
We try to build BOC a green financing-oriented bank, we try to provide more services and products serving this green financing development. During the 14th Five-Year Plan, we plan to provide no less than RMB 1 trillion support for those green industries. For the corporate lending, compared with the 13th Five-Year Plan, it's going to be 5% more. We try to reach 10% of the support for the corporate loans to support the green financing development. By the end of this year, we are going to do more. Also, the second one is to try to control the lending business for brown lending-related business, meaning we will try to help those traditional industries for their transformation. Also, we will reduce the proportion of the coal mine as well as the coal power related products.
We will try to help those traditional enterprises to have their technological upgrading as well as the clean use of the fossil fuels. We try to reduce our customers, the per capita or per unit, consumption and emission of carbon. The third one is that we will try to implement our State Council's requirement. We will have proactive structure-based readjustment. At the same time, we try to avoid those blind reduction of the loans towards those traditional industries. We try to balance. Number one, we try to support the green development. Number two, we protect the transformation of the traditional enterprises. We have this inclusive and differentiation-based green finance transformation. The third one is to serve our emission trading market building. We will play our BOC's comprehensive business role and globalize the business provision strength.
We will try to introduce in the business experience from the Western countries, and rely on the professional financial market and the transaction banking services to help with the emission rights market development and also energy rights market system development. Fourthly, we try to create green financing product, innovate on this product. We create our brand as a green BOC, develop new business models, the product models to issue green loans and green bonds and carbon neutralization bond as well. Fifthly, strengthen international cooperation and promote linkage and alignment on China and overseas green financing standards. In international organizations such as TCFD and GIP, we will take active participation in the standard setting process. Sixthly, we will carry out environmental risk stress testing. Environmental risk will be included into the comprehensive risk management system.
By the end of this year, we will carry out stress testing for the wind or for the thermal powered plants. Seventh, we will manage our own carbon footprint, have green office and a low carbon operation, conserve electricity, paper, and the usage of cars, so as to enhance our carbon footprint management and explore carbon neutrality operation and timetables and action plans. We have engaged a special consultant to help us to achieve carbon neutrality in our own operations and also come up with green financing suggestions. We allow the final question for the first half.
I'm from JPMorgan. My name is Lily. My question is about asset quality. In 2021, we are seeing a stabilized domestic economic recovery and the asset quality of the bank is in reduced pressure. The market do worry about certain industries, certain regions, asset quality.
We are seeing Bank of China performing well in NPL amount and NPL ratio. I want to know whether this trend can be continued and also to be specific, some of the inclusive finance are giving deferred payment of principals and dividend on the interest expansion. Can this situation be sustained? Is the overseas assets under pressure?
Thank you for your question. You have asked very good questions into three layers. Before we have this press conference, and we are trying to solicit questions from the investors. In this process, we get a lot of questions about asset quality. The floor is given to Mr. Liu, CRO of the bank.
Thank you, JPMorgan analyst for your question. Asset quality have been a question of concern for many people, and in the first half of 2021, Bank of China asset quality maintained a stable progress.
NPL amount and NPL ratio enjoyed a double growth. NPL amount was to CNY 200.348 billion, a reduction of CNY 6.925 billion. NPL ratio, 1.3%, a decrease of 0.16 percentage point, while special mention loan balance and overdue loan balance both reduced. The gap between overdue loan and non-performing loan continuously reduced. Asset quality were further improved. Also, we are stepping up efforts in NPL resolution in domestic institutions. By the end of June, overseas non-performing loan amount and non-performing loan ratio increased slightly. Only incurred NPL happened with real estate and aviation industries, which are suffering continuously negative impact from the pandemic. Overall, the risk is within control. It is expected that in the latter half of the year, the asset quality of the bank will making progress steadily, but there are many uncertainties. For example, the outbreak of the pandemic repeatedly, and also some geopolitical tensions.
Some of the industries like real estate sector and also for government businesses and export businesses. In these areas, we may face some uncertainties. We will try to prevent financial risk and serve the real economy at the same time. We take active measures to improve our asset quality and try to provide industry-wide guidance. We try to enhance potential risk management and control and also handle those risks early on. Certainly, we strengthen our risk disposal efforts, try to strengthen NPL resolution, and we expand the collection efforts on a non-contact basis. Fourthly, we will have dynamic estimate of expected credit loss and make adequate provision so as to increase our risk tolerance capability. As you mentioned just now, in overseas markets, we are facing more pressure than domestic markets, but generally, the risk is within control and the overseas markets are making steady progress.
We will further improve asset quality in overseas regions. For different regions, we will adopt a differentiated policy so as to improve our risk management. You also mentioned the inclusive lending, which have deferred payment of principal and interest. We pay continuous attention to this sector. We support the resumption of work of small and micro companies. We actively support those companies who are in difficulties while we try to prevent financial risk at the same time. Starting from January 2020 till June 2021, in total, we have arranged the extension of payment period for a total of RMB 117.854 billion of principal. The total deferred interest was RMB 664 million. According to our initial understanding for the deferred principal and the interest loss, the total asset quality is good, stable, and with risk within control.
According to our latest estimate, in 2021, the amount of NPL coming from this deferred payment part will only contribute to less than 0.4 percentage point of our total NPL, which is within control. We will make further efforts to do a better risk control. Thank you for your question.
Thank you. Due to the time limit, the investors and analyst part will finish now. For investors and analysts, if you have further questions and queries, you can contact our colleagues within the investors relations team of Bank of China. Now I give the floor to Mr. Jia Tianbing, spokesperson of Bank of China, and also he is the General Manager of President's Office.
Thank you, Mr. Mei. We are seeing the convening of our mid-term or interim result announcement in a timely manner. Thank you for your support and continuous attention to Bank of China.
Now, we give the floor to media friends to allow further questions. Each media friend can only ask one question because of a time concern. Also, please identify yourself before asking questions. Now, we would like to invite in the first media friends. You can ask the first question.
Thank you. I'm from Xinhua News Agency. This year, we are seeing the starting of the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan of the country. As mentioned by President Liu just now, that Bank of China's 14th Five-Year Plan is aligned with the national strategy, and you have specified "One Body, Two Wings" strategy and focus on eight major financial areas. Can you introduce us the vision of Bank of China in 14th Five-Year Plan and how could you further promote the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan?
Thank you for your question. To further implement the national strategy and try to contribute more value to the country, Bank of China have drafted and issued the 14th Five-Year Plan of Bank of China Group. What you ask is a very comprehensive question. That is why I want to give the floor to President Liu Jin.
Thank you for your question. 2021 is our important historical juncture, at which we are seeing the celebration of two centennial ceremonies. Also, this is the starting year of the 14th Five-Year Plan. On this important historical juncture, Bank of China stick to the guidance of President Xi Jinping. We take the 14th Five-Year Plan as our blueprint. We try to honor our mission as connecting the world and creating wellbeing to the society.
We have tried to speed up the establishment and the achievement of our strategy of "One Body, Two Wings," with commercial bank as the main body, and globalization and integrated operation as the two wings, and try to turn ourself into global first-level modern bank. From three aspects I want to answer your question. Bank of China will assume the role to be a state-owned big bank, and we will develop new development patterns and try to speed up the establishment of One Body, Two Wings, which is our strategy. We are trying to find the position of Bank of China in domestic and international dual circulation, and we try to find out our competitive advantage, and try to connect domestic market with international market. Try to give full play to our advantage as a globalized and integrated operating bank.
We try to connect domestic capital market with foreign markets. We emphasize One Body, Two Wings. One Body means we will focus on being a large commercial bank. We will follow the national strategy and implement the major decisions of the State Council and channel our resources to key areas of the nation and the key links of the national economic development. The commercial bank will make breakthrough development. We also identified major areas for development. We have identified the plans for transformation and development for the Two Wings. I emphasize repeatedly that we should be determined and have a unanimous understanding about strengthening our globalization advantage and strengthen our advantage as an integrated operating bank. This is the promise of our development and also the requirements of serving the national economy.
In the first half of the year, Bank of China, in major international areas, in cross-border financial services, we are taking the lead in the market. Many customers who became customer to Bank of China many years ago, who stick with Bank of China for many years, some of them try to keep a distance from Bank of China in the past years because of some of the reasons, now they are coming back. Many of the old customers are coming back to Bank of China to enjoy the globalized and internationalized services of Bank of China. We are having a larger client base now. In terms of globalization and internationalization, we will continue to consolidate our strength in conventional products. We will also do more in terms of product innovation, service innovation, or even theory and methodology innovation.
For example, at the beginning of this month, we had more than $900 million worth of the bonds issuing. Also GBP 300 million of the bond issuing with floating interest rates. For the SOFR bond, it was first created by us in 2019 for the British pound SONIA bond. We are the pioneer also it's the world's first publicly raised guarantee-free debt issuing. Actually, these bonds issuing projects are highly technical and complicated, have aroused a lot of attention and interest from the markets. Actually, the market participants are very enthusiastic. I'm not only talking about the issuing of the new bonds with floating interest rates. They actually are symbolic that we are innovating in an accelerated manner in terms of product and services domestically and internationally. Second, I will talk about implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
In that manner, we should continue to serve the tangible economy. We have identified eight financial service areas as our starting points and our platform for the financial supply-side structural reforms. For the key economic areas and the weak links of the national economy, we will do more. We will have already identified the eight financial service areas as our priorities. They are fintech, green finance, inclusive finance, cross-border finance, consumer finance, wealth management, supply chain finance, and county-level finance. Also we have decided to do more than 20 projects to implement. Well, to serve the tangible economy, of course, we need to increase the lending. We need to increase investments. We can do more. Actually, it's about the NPL. You might be very interested in NPLs. My colleague already has answered a question about the trend of our NPLs in the second half of this year.
The NPL ratio of 1.3%, I think, is relatively low.
For the NPL ratio, it's a dynamic, and it will change. That's to say, sometimes it might go down, or sometimes it might slightly pick up. They will not represent any fundamental change. For our NPLs or for the NPL management and credit asset management, we will continue to serve the tangible economy. As a major bank, we have that responsibility. We have to work closely with local governments to help businesses overcome their debt difficulties. Some are SOEs, some are private businesses. Some private businesses are big in terms of size. Maybe from the media reports, you already know that some businesses have increasing debt. They are under stress. Major banks, like BOC, must work with the local governments to resolve potential debt crisis or debt problems.
Our chairman sometimes will ask me, "Well, our NPL ratio is only 1.3%, so given our balance of loans of more than CNY 200 billion, is it problematic?" Our chairperson sometimes is not reassured. At our board meeting, many directors also give us kind reminders. They remind us that the domestic NPL risk and overseas NPL risk cannot be neglected. I want to share with you that as long as you are confident in the future of the Chinese economy, as long as you are confident in the advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics, you should be confident in BOC and in BOC's role in China's economic development. Our NPL ratio volatility, the small volatility, doesn't represent a significant shift of our asset quality. You should sense the advantages of our socialism with the Chinese characteristics.
If one locality, one business, one SOE, has a debt crisis, our provincial governor, the mayor, and officials at other levels will work their best to help those businesses in difficulties. We have that institutional advantages. Although some clients have difficulties, but their loans are not immediately labeled as NPLs, because we are still confident in their future prospects, and we are confident in the country's capability for debt crisis resolution. Maybe sometimes the NPL ratio will be more than 1.3 percentage points. It will slightly pick up. Our fundamental asset quality, I think, is good, and the situation is under control. That is also our effort to support tangible economic development. Third, BOC also catches with the pace of the time, and so we will continue to accelerate Digital China development. BOC itself must be comprehensively fully digitalized.
That is the top priority in changing our business and the development model. Here, we will make use of the big data, cloud computing, AI, blockchain, 5G, and other technologies. We have the two major engineering projects. That's the enterprise architecture developments and the data governance. We will make use of our One Body, Two Wings strategy to improve the open financial ecosystem. We have five projects for improving capabilities and capacities in terms of improving customer experience, opening up and sharing products and services, integrating and optimizing business processes, smart and efficient risk management control, reducing the burden of our employees while empowering our employees. We will continue to serve the digital economic development, digital society program, and digital government program. Last time, I already made the introductions to you. I told you that we have the two major digital engineering projects.
One is the enterprise-level architecture developments, and the other is the data governance. We believe with such capability and capacity building, you will see the good outcomes of our digital strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, for the 15th Five-Year Plan or for the eight major financial service areas, they are the BOC strategy. Execution of a strategy of a plan is even more important. At the board meeting, our directors also have reiterated the importance of execution and implementation. For the eight financial priority areas, I have communicated with the senior management teams, with the key employees.
When we visit the local branches, we also listen to their reports, and we discuss with the employees about how to really substantiate the Eight Priority Financial Service Area Strategy. We will continue to push the execution and the implementation, so that our strategy or our blueprint is not a piece of paper. It has tangible outcomes that the board requires that on a quarterly and a half-year basis, the management must report to the board about the progress of implementing the 14th Five-Year Plan. For the management, we are quite confident that the 14th Five-Year Plan will be well executed. Under it, there are also 20 sub-plans. In that way, I'm confident that the BOC 14th Five-Year Plan and the Eight Priority Financial Services Strategy will be the guiding principles for the future developments of BOC. Thank you.
For the long-term overall comprehensive development strategy of BOC, I think you already have got a good answer. If you have follow-up questions, you are welcome. The next.
Yes.
The floor is open. You can ask the next question.
Yes. With respect to BOC team, the State Council meeting has emphasized that financial industry should greatly support the tangible economy, especially the SMEs and the micro businesses. In the first half of this year, the banking sector in China has increased more in terms of the inclusive lending. How about the situation of BOC in the first half of this year, and if you will continue to support SME and the micro businesses?
Madam Su is from China Securities Newspaper. Thank you for your question. BOC is a major state-owned bank. We have our responsibility in supporting the tangible economy and SMEs as well as micro businesses. Our VP Wang Wei will answer the question.
I would like to thank the journalist for your question. BOC has always been implementing the national strategies and the policies for supporting SMEs and micro businesses in the tangible economy. We have taken multiple measures. First, increasing lending and strengthening financial services to them. By the end of June this year, the inclusive financing lending by BOC balance was CNY 781.6 billion, according to the regulator's definition, an increase of CNY 206 billion or an increase rate of 35.8%. The government's target for us was to increase such inclusive lending by 30%, and the recipients were 567,900, up by 99,500 clients.
NPL ratio was 0.61%, down by 0.22 percentage points in the first half of this year. For the new inclusive finance loans, the interest rate was 3.94%. For the small other micro business, their comprehensive financing cost went down by 48 BP. Second, more fintech and more digital services. For the online inclusive finance lending in the first half of this year, the balance was CNY 52.3 billion, an increase of CNY 48.9 billion as compared with the end of last year. Also, the products are more diversified. We not only have the credit lending but also taxation-based lending and collectivized lending and other online lending products. Third, innovation to support major clients. For example, the specialized pioneering new and niche SMEs are innovative technology enterprises.
We have worked with the MIIT so as to provide more than CNY 80 billion of lending to more than 10,000 SMEs. We also have a Huawei inclusive lending plan for the benefit of a supply chain and industrial financing. We also have the platform-based small and micro enterprise supply chain financing. Fourthly, to improve the market reputation. For the last Spring Festival, many people stayed where they are for the Spring Festival, and they didn't go back to their hometowns. Their employees also stayed there. We provided services to more than 7,500 SMEs and micro businesses. For these micro and small businesses, they could have multiple withdrawals and revolving lending facilities for us, so that our lending to the small and micro businesses is more flexible.
We also have worked with SIPO, the national IP agency, so that we can provide financing to those small and micro businesses with a strong IP foundation. In the next step, we will continue to push the developments of inclusive financing for SMEs.
We will support the science and technological advancement and try to support those, their good quality base for these small and medium-sized enterprises. We will also support those strategically prioritized area for SMEs, and we also will support those, their innovation for the high-tech companies. We will formulate the special action plan for the support of these small and medium-sized enterprises. We will also support those, what we call the little giant and other small but strong enterprises. Try to support those, the good quality enterprises in terms of their, for example, IP-based financing as well as other online products. We will try to enrich our products portfolio.
Next one is about the stabilizing and supporting of the normal operation of the SME and micro enterprises, and try to give them more of the supporting policies for the repayments when they are in a difficult situation. Still, they have potential for future development. We will just try to stick to the principle of continued support. We will not stop the lending. For those enterprises, we may have this bulk review at the annual level, and we will give them the bridge lending to try to help those enterprises suffer from the pandemic in terms of their repayment. We will just implement the due diligence principle and try to build a long-term mechanism to support the small and medium-sized enterprises. Thank you.
Okay. I'd like to add a few words.
After Mr. Wang's answer, I would like to say a few words. Talking about inclusive financing, first, we try to implement the regulators' requirement. At the same time, in terms of the number of borrowers, as well as the proportion of the credit loans were the first borrowers' loans. BOC has performed well, meaning we performed really well in terms of inclusive financial service provision. In today's board meeting, our chairman and the directors raised even higher requirements for the senior management of BOC, mentioning that we do not simply stick to numbers, or we simply satisfy the requirement of regulators. That's not our achievement. We need to aim higher, and we need to be more stringent in terms of our self-requirement.
We need to optimize our inclusive financing system, in a real manner, to implement our inclusive financing to support the real economy. It's going to be a very important model or module for BOC to support the real economy in China. Based on this higher requirement, we have done a lot in the first half. We also have the cross-sector cooperation within the group, as well as the interaction with our customers. We try to optimize the mechanism as well as the system. In terms of the management system, we try to clarify or enrich the function of inclusive financing. Also, based on the Department of Inclusive Finance, we also have another division supporting the revitalization or rejuvenation of the county and the rural area in China. We combine this strategy, and the system-based and inclusive financing sector have a better basis for future development.
We will do more to support BOC's inclusive finance development. It's going to be another famous brand for BOC in the future. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, EVP Wang Wei. Thank you, President Liu Jin , for your comments. Also, during the first half, BOC has implemented a series of measures to support inclusive finance development in BOC. Just now, President Liu Jin gave you a lot of examples. BOC takes real actions to support the real economy in China. We also believe that in the second half and in the future, we will take more actions to develop our inclusive financial services and try to benefit more small, medium-sized, as well as the real economy. After this release, and if you want to know more, you can contact us later. We would like to give you more updated information in this respect.
Now I'd like to give the floor to another journalist, please. Next question. You may start. Next question.
Thank you, Chair. Also thank you, senior management of BOC. I'm from iFeng Net. My name is Chen Yao. I'd like to ask about the overseas branch in terms of their operation. For the first half, we have a general recovery, yet we still suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic due to its rebound. Also, I'd like to know more about the operational situation of BOC's overseas branch. What are the challenges, and what are the opportunities? What will BOC do to address these challenges?
BOC, as Mr. Liu also mentioned, we have the new strategy. We have the One Body, Two Wings. We have the strength of a globalized business. You may also care a lot about the globalized business or our overseas branch business operations.
Now I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Chen to answer your question.
Thank you for your question. For this year, BOC paid high attention to the development. We try to improve our global business and try to have steady development. By the end of June, the overseas deposit and lending balance has increased to 13.86% and 11.95%, respectively, and we are still ranking number one in terms of the lending business. We also have the classified management and differentiated management. We try to improve the development capacity for the overseas branch, as well as the coordination between the branches and the groups. Also in terms of our future development, BOC stick to the principle of standing China facing the world. We also stick to our globalized business development.
As China's economy becomes stable and have very good trends, we will use this great situation as new opportunity. We will have a high level going global strategy implementation. We have a lot of good, great opportunities, Belt and Road Initiative, Greater Bay Area, free trade zones, as well as the deep opening of the financial sector, so we can connect the domestic and overseas market properly. The second one is the new momentums. We have the bank digital transformation. The speed of the transformation is quicker. We also will use the 5G technology to boost the Internet-based service provision. We also will grasp new opportunities. Now we are facing the low carbon green development. Carbon peak and carbon neutral has become a real target for us to realize, and we will have the transformation of our business operation, and these are also great opportunities.
At the same time, we are facing a lot of challenges in terms of BOC's future development. We have quite complicated international situation. We also suffer from the pandemic. We have this global economy in a fluctuated situation, is bubbled, and we also have this huge fluctuation as well as the inflation expectation. The financial market risk has been increased substantially. Also for those, the sovereign debt risk is also increasing, and we have lower NIM, and we have the pressure for the overseas BOC branch in terms of their profitability. We also have higher standards for the anti-money laundering, as well as the compliance for taxation, information safety. We also have more stringent standards for ESG.
Facing all these complicated situation, higher regulators requirement, BOC will always bear the micro goal of build a society of human beings and will shoulder our responsibility as a leader in the international business. We will support China's higher level open up, and we will stick to the stable operation, and we will try to control the pandemic as well as the risk brought by the pandemic. We will address the financial market risks, and we will also build our baseline, try to increase the risk compliance awareness. We will take the proactive manner to manage our risk management. We will implement ESG principles in terms of the development and design of our products. We also will try to actively develop the green financial products as well as the service provision model.
In the future, BOC will have both quality-based and quantity-based development to finish our transformation of the business. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chen. Next question. Okay. Next journalist, please. You can ask your question.
Thank you. New management. I'm from Financial World. My name is Grom Jing. I'm interested in the Beijing Winter Olympics. After the Tokyo 2020 Olympic closed, the focus has switched to Beijing's Winter Olympics and Paralympics is going to be held in Beijing and Zhangjiakou area, and it will just increase the Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei coordinated development. I'd like to ask you, how do you support the Winter Olympics, and what kind of role BOC can play, and how could we use this trend as a double Olympic bank?
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your question. BOC is really proud to answer this question.
BOC is the partner for Winter Olympics and the Paralympics, which means five months later, we will hold our Winter Olympics. BOC has supported this great event for four years, and we will continue.
Our support, also is the value of BOC. We are proud as the partner of the Winter Olympics in 2022. Now I'd like to ask Mr. Wang to answer this question.
Thank you for your question. Now we have the Beijing time for this Winter Olympics. In terms of the preparation of Winter Olympics and the Paralympics, the preparation is progressing well, and we are now in the last stage of welcoming these two great events. BOC will deploy as well as try our best to support these two Olympics. The first one, we will use high-standard financial service to support the Winter Olympics. This is BOC's commitment, and also we consider this as our mission. During the Winter Olympics, we will provide financial service to the domestic and overseas staff, as well as the local and foreign currencies business support, online and offline financial service. Also in the venue of the Winter Olympics, we have set five outlets there and six self-service provision area. We can provide multi-language services including English, French, German, et cetera.
Also based on the requirement of the pandemic, we also provide the cash as well as the foreign cash provision for the service provision. We try to make sure we have good support to support the Olympics. The second one is about the innovation-based financial service provision. We want to support this science and technology-oriented Winter Olympics. We have some of the theme-based credit cards and issuance, and we also have the digital RMB Winter Olympic piloting project. We also have those visible chip wallets, as well as the other digital currency based on the ATMs. We also formulate the service provision plans for those overseas visitors as well as the athletes from other countries for the tax reimbursement, et cetera.
The third one is to using financial service to boost the ice and the skate-based sports, and in particular to support the high-quality development of these ice and snow-based sports.
A lot of support to Winter Olympics in Beijing, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Xinjiang, and other 10 also provinces, cities and autonomous regions. By the end of July 2021, in total, we have lend out RMB 28.4 billion, we try to help 300 million to people to be involved in winter sports. In the next stage, we trying to create a better platform for Winter Olympic Games and try to enable more people to understand our Bank of China's brand as sponsoring two Olympic Games. We try to encourage collaboration among Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei Province, and try to improve our market share in this area and contribute more to the coordinated development of this region. Thank you for your question. That's the end of my answering.
Thank you, Mr. Wang Zhiheng.
To be involved in Winter Sports and come to Bank of China, let's expect a safe and simple, excellent Olympic Games. We allow the final question to be asked due to time limit. Now we allow the final question.
Good afternoon. I'm from China Business Journal. My question is about global banking transformation and about fintech. Fintech are becoming a major driver of business growth and a way to breakthrough for bank's transformation. I want to ask the management, what are the progress that has been made by Bank of China in the first half in terms of fintech-enabled businesses, and what is your plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period? Thank you.
In each of the press conference, we have media friends who ask questions about fintech development of Bank of China.
The 14th Five-Year Plan of the group have a special chapter devoted to fintech development within the group. I would like to give the floor to Mr. Liu Qiuwan, Chief Information Officer of the bank.
Thank you, friends from China Business Journal for your question. I want to thank media friends for your long-term attention to fintech development within Bank of China. Bank of China has willingly promote the strategy of technology as the leader and the innovation-driven development strategy. We have developed and focused on key projects which have blossomed, we are seeing results from technology-enabled businesses, which has supported business growth in the first half of the year. Technology has enabled us to provide online services. We have newly launched version 7.0 of our mobile phone app, we add special zones for private banking, digital credit card. We also add a terminal for senior clients.
I mean, elderly clients. We have the features of combining financial services with scenario, combining technology with care, combining smarter services with professional knowledge. Our global transaction banking, iGTB, have strengthened our online services for corporate customers, and we have offered cross-border remittance, supply chain financing, notary services to these customers. We have full process online from a collateral loan application to the final issuance of these loans. Second, we increased the smart and intelligent services level of our bank. We have upgraded our Smart Investment application to version 2.0, with yield exceeding pure performance. For quantitative and transactions in the first half, we have launched domestic precious metal, RMB bond, and spot foreign exchange transactions and other markets. We have automatic market making, treasury businesses are becoming smarter and more intelligent.
We have developed an application called Smart Anti-Fraud Machine Learning Module, which has won us The Asian Banker's Award. Also, we have increased our risk management level by using smart vault and smart cash trunk. We also achieve mobile operations. We have developed a digital Bank of China app so as to increase the speed and granularity of the data services provided to senior management. Also, we have provided mobile office and internal management and operation support through mobile banking ecology. Fourthly, we strengthen our technical support for major project. Green Oasis project have been fully implemented, and we have sped up the implementation of Oasis project. In the next step, we will further strengthen our digitalization process. We will focus on three major tasks.
First, we will try to provide support to the business. We will establish IT capacity, a next-generation IT infrastructure, try to establish new infrastructure for the bank. Second, we will strengthen technology-enabled business development and try to serve front office, middle office better, and try to enable the eight major financial tasks of the bank. Certainly, we will be forward-looking in combining scenario with ecology development, and we will enhance our conversion capability and collaboration capability. We will promote cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other mature technology to be used in a large scale. We will reshape our business models, promoting the integration of 5G, Internet of Things, with financial businesses. We will also try to be the first mover in the next phase fintech development. We will pay continuous attention to 6G, quantum computing, and linkage between brain and computer.
Try to seek more opportunities. In the first half of the year, we have set up a financial digitalization committee to coordinate the development of digitalization, fintech, data governance within the bank. In the latter half of the year, we will further optimize our technology management and focus on the integration between fintech and businesses. This is the starting year for the 14th Five-Year Plan. We will further implement the 14th Five-Year Plan of the group and enable the business with our fintech and start a new journey of fintech.
Thank you. Mr. Liu Qiuwan, CIO of the bank. Because of time limits, that's the end of the Q&A session. If you have further questions, please contact us. Contact our friends and colleagues. I want to thank media friends, investors, and analysts for participating in today's result announcement.
I also want to thank all the friends who are listening to us through online broadcasting. That's the end of our interim result announcement. I wish you happy life and a healthy stay in Beijing [and in -].