Agricultural Bank of China President Wang Zhiheng: Financial growth remains resilient; 2026 growth will be driven by three aspects

March 30, frontline financial news: Agricultural Bank of China held its 2025 annual performance press conference today. President Wang Zhiheng said that in 2025, amid a complex and ever-changing operating environment, the bank’s overall financial growth has maintained relatively strong resilience. Operating income has maintained positive growth for two consecutive years, net profit has maintained positive growth, and the growth rate is gradually improving— the favorable momentum in both stability and improvement has been further consolidated.

Wang Zhiheng pointed out that when viewed over a longer time horizon, the bank’s financial performance is even more noteworthy. Net profit growth has been leading comparable peers for six consecutive years. Operating income has led peers, the bank restored operations ahead of schedule and set a historical high, achieving sustained growth on a high base—clearly demonstrating the market characteristics of dividend compounding plus growth. This has built confidence and laid the foundation for the Agricultural Bank to strive for even better performance.

Wang Zhiheng emphasized that the management is confident of even better operating performance in 2026. Based on the situation in the first two months of 2026, the Agricultural Bank’s business operations have continued to show an overall favorable trend of stability and improvement. Wang Zhiheng disclosed that increased loans to the real economy amounted to 1.1 trillion, achieving more growth year-on-year, and that the trend of interest spread stabilization at the financial level is evident. The year-on-year growth rate of net interest income turned positive, and it is expected to see a turning point in the first quarter, further confirming the positive overall trend in operations.

Wang Zhiheng said that in the next stage, the Agricultural Bank will maintain strategic resolve. On the basis of continuously optimizing financial services, it will better coordinate the work to achieve effective results in both “quantity and price.” It will advance income growth and cost reduction, drive down costs and enhance efficiency, and strive to carry forward the currently favorable development momentum. It will focus on the following three areas:

First, drive the growth rate of net interest income back into positive territory. On the one hand, in terms of scale, it will further tap into effective credit demand, increase lending to the real economy, continuously optimize the asset structure, and promote coordinated development of the total and structural scale of interest-earning assets. On the other hand, it will strengthen refined pricing management, improve the marginal return on assets, further strengthen the customer base, do a good job organizing low-cost, stable funding, flexibly arrange for proactive liabilities, and work to further lower deposit costs.

Second, actively expand the growth space for non-interest income. On the one hand, it will seize good opportunities arising from policies to boost consumption and the reform and development of the capital markets. It will increase the supply of wealth management and other product and service offerings, effectively meet customers’ diversified needs, and continuously enhance the value contribution of intermediary businesses. On the other hand, it will further strengthen integrated operations, conduct forward-looking assessments and judgments about market trends, dynamically optimize investment and trading strategies and the allocation of major asset classes, and strive to maintain a relatively strong level of other non-interest income.

Third, manage risk and costs well. On the one hand, it will continue to strengthen credit risk prevention in key areas, strictly control overdue and newly originated non-performing loans, work to stabilize asset quality, and strive to reduce the consumption of risk costs. On the other hand, it will strengthen intensive and refined management, further cut down non-urgent and non-essential expenditures, and achieve higher returns with better costs.

“In short, we should be full of confidence about 2026.” Wang Zhiheng emphasized.

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Responsible editor: Qin Yi