Small and medium-sized commercial banks' profit totaled 125.2 billion yuan (18.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008, up 53 percent year-on-year, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said on its website Tuesday.

These banks' non-performing loan ratio decreased to 1.7 percent from 2.45 percent.

Small and medium-sized commercial banks include city commercial banks, rural commercial banks and rural cooperative banks. They provide most of the loans to small and private-owned enterprises.

Source: Xinhua