China Construction Bank, second most profitable bank in world. - The China Construction Bank (CCB), the second biggest bank in China, has announced a 15% surge in net profits for 2009. Over the year as a whole, the public group, of which the Bank of America currently holds 10%, generated net income of 106 billion yuan, or $15.63 billion. Although these results are below those of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ($18.8 billion), they do allow the establishment to rank second most profitable bank in the world ahead of the American giant, Goldman Sachs, which recently presented net profits of $13.4 billion over the whole of last year. After having seen the volume of its new loans surge to 29% last year, the group - which must keep to Beijing's investment support orders - promises to only validate 17% of new credits this year and to work towards rebalancing its accounts. (I.L./transl.jl)