The net profit of China Construction Bank Corp increased 5.59 percent year-on-year to 155.71 billion yuan ($21.74 billion) in the first half of 2019.

One of the key factors affecting the profitability of the bank and its subsidiaries is an increase in net interest income by 4.57 percent year-on-year, due to the growth of interest-earning assets.

Net fee and commission income also rose by 11.15 percent during the same period. Income from credit cards, agency insurance services and syndicated loans increased rapidly, in addition to steady income growth of asset custody and wealth management products, according to the bank's interim results announcement issued on Wednesday.

The second-largest commercial lender by assets in China continued to optimize its credit structure and maintained steady growth of corporate loans, which vigorously supported the development of the real economy — the part of the economy that produces goods and services.

At the end of June, the balance of domestic corporate loans and advances of the bank were 6.85 trillion yuan, up 5.36 percent from the end of 2018.

Over the same period, the balance of loans to infrastructure sectors increased by 4.31 percent to 3.61 trillion yuan, accounting for 52.71 percent of the corporate loans and advances. The balance of loans to strategic emerging industries rose 37.58 percent to 530.47 billion yuan. The balance of loans to private enterprises was 2.32 trillion yuan, representing an increase of 9.58 percent.

The bank also used instruments such as the Credit Risk Mitigation Warrant, a financial instrument to hedge default risks, to underwrite debt financing instruments of 11.88 billion yuan and undertake asset-backed securitization projects of 3.15 billion yuan for private enterprises, according to the announcement.

In the first half of the year, the bank and its subsidiaries continued with proactive comprehensive risk management, pushed adjustments to their credit asset structure and strengthened fundamental credit management to enhance their refined management standard for the whole process. Asset quality remained stable on the whole.

At the end of June, the balance of nonperforming loans was 208.07 billion yuan, increasing by 7.19 billion yuan over the end of last year. The NPL ratio fell 3 basis points to 1.43 percent.