BEIJING - The former chairman of one of China's biggest banks pleaded guilty
to charges that he took bribes to arrange loans, according to a report published
Saturday. The plea adds to a string of high-level graft cases at Chinese banks.
Zhang Enzhao resigned 16 months ago as chairman of China Construction
Bank Ltd., one of China's top four state-owned banks. The bank said he quit for
personal reasons, but later disclosed he was suspected of unspecified
wrongdoing.
On Thursday, Zhang pleaded guilty in the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court to
taking bribes, but he said the amount was lower than the US$520,000 cited by
prosecutors, the Beijing News reported.
It was the most detailed account yet of the charges against the 60-year-old
Zhang.
The report did not say when Zhang might be sentenced or what penalty he might
face. A court employee who would give only his surname, Liu, confirmed that
Zhang stood trial Thursday but said he did not know the plea or other details.
China's banking industry has been battered by dozens of such cases, usually
against managers accused of embezzlement or arranging fraudulent loans.
The scandals come at a time when Chinese banks are trying to raise money from
foreign investors to modernize operations, as China prepares to fully open the
banking market to foreign rivals. Much of the wrongdoing has been uncovered as
banks undergo audits in preparation for selling shares on Chinese and foreign
stock markets.
The revelations have not shaken investor enthusiasm for Chinese banks.
Construction Bank, the first of the "big four" banks to hold an initial
public offering abroad, raised US$9.2 billion in October in Hong Kong in the
world's biggest IPO of 2006.
A former Construction Bank president, Wang Xuebing, was sentenced in 2003 to
12 years in prison on charges of taking bribes while working as the New York
City branch manager of another major Chinese bank. That bank, Bank of China
Ltd., agreed to pay a US$20 million fine to US and Chinese regulators.
In the biggest reported graft case to date, a former Bank of China employee
was sentenced in April to 12 years in prison for helping embezzle $485 million
from the bank. The employee was extradited from the United States in 2004 after
Chinese authorities promised he would not face the death penalty.
Zhang, the former Construction Bank chairman, faced 19 counts of taking cash
and property in exchange for helping people obtain loans from his bank,
according to the Beijing News.
