China’s ICBC, Citic Group Violated Rules

The Industrial Bank of China (ICBC) and Citic Group Corp. have violated several financial regulations in their lending and other operations, China’s top auditor ruled Friday.

The routine audit of the two companies’ activities in 2010 by the National Audit Office (NAO) found they had broken rules on providing credit services, including granting loans to under-funded property projects and local government financing platforms, as well as providing bill discounting services to falsified trade contracts.

The audit office said the two companies had chaotic financial management, adding that some of their loans were misused by their clients.

Separately, the NAO also audited the financial revenues of 15 centrally administered state-owned enterprises, including the country’s two oil giants — China National Petroleum Corporation and China Petrochemical Corporation.

It said various irregularities were uncovered in these companies, but that 97 percent of these violations had been rectified and that 87 people responsible had been penalized as of the end of March, Xinhua reported.