China's central bank has said a recent Ernst and Young report, claiming non-performing loans of domestic commercial banks total 900 billion dollars, "seriously distorts" the actual situation.
A statement posted on the People's Bank of China website cited an unnamed bank official as employing unusually harsh words to dismiss the findings of the auditing firm's report.
"The report not only seriously distorts the actual assets quality of the Chinese banking sector," the official was quoted as saying.
"Its statements on several financial institutions are also seriously wrong and its conclusions are absurd and incomprehensible."
It said that domestic commercial banks' non-performing loans ratio at the end of the first quarter of this year stood at eight percent or about 1.31 trillion yuan (164 billion dollars).
The Financial Times last week cited the Ernst and Young survey saying China's banking debt problem is far higher than official estimates indicate with non-performing loans worth as much as 900 billion dollars.
The report comes as foreign institutions continue to move into the sector and as the nation's big banks seek a higher international profile.
