BEIJING - The requirements of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) on commercial lenders will not be loosened despite declining new loans starting from the beginning of this year.

Yan Qingmin, assistant chairman of the CBRC, said on Sunday that regulatory indices such as the 75 percent loan-deposit ratio and a provision ratio which requires lenders to hold a provision equal to 2.5 percent of their outstanding loans will stay.

The CBRC is preparing for higher capital adequacy standards, the implementation of which has been postponed from January to this July, he said.

"The risks among lenders on lendings related to the local government and the property market are still controllable," he said.

"The pick-up of non-performing loan ratio and outstanding non-performing loans in the fourth quarter of last year was a 'natural response’to the economic slowdown."

Yan said some local governments are injecting good quality assets into lending projects to solve debt repayment problems with banks.

He denied the possibility that in the future there will be another round of bad assets sales among lenders.

On interest rate liberalizations, Yan said the government should loosen the rein on deposit interest rates first to restrain deposit outflows from lenders and curb the rampant private lending across the country.