Millions of dollars in bad loans

Millions of dollars in bad loans caused by China´s massive earthquake will be written off in an effort to help disaster victims, the nation´s bank regulator said Saturday.

"If borrowers suffered huge losses that cannot be covered by insurance, or if the insurance or guarantees are not enough for the debts, the loans should be regarded as bad loans and written off in a timely manner," it said.

The move was aimed at reducing the debt burden of the region ravaged by the earthquake, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement posted on its website.

Premier Wen Jiabao Saturday said more than 80,000 people may have been killed by the May 12 earthquake, which left 5.47 million people homeless and scores of towns and villages in Sichuan province destroyed or badly damaged.

The commission also ordered banks to write off bad credit card loans whose holders and guarantors died or went missing in the quake and who have no other assets to pay back the loans.

It was not immediately clear how many loans would be written off, but according to Xinhua news agency the Agricultural Bank of China estimated it was facing up to six billion yuan (863 million dollars) in bad loans linked to the quake.

The government has struggled to alleviate the financial burden caused by the quake and issued a series of measures in recent days.

The commission earlier ordered Chinese banks to open credit lines of 82.7 billion yuan (11.9 billion dollars) and extend loans worth 6.5 billion yuan for relief and reconstruction.

Besides allocating up to 2.5 billion yuan (357 million dollars) in personal allowances to quake victims, the government also ordered tax relief and loan extensions for bank borrowers in quake-hit areas.

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