Its shares in the lender become tradable on Monday. But as Central Huijin, an arm of China Investment Corp, noted yesterday: "Shares becoming tradable does not equal selling holdings, and it does not mean that Huijin will change its policy of holding shares in key financial institutions."

Central Huijin said it aims to maintain controlling- shareholder status in financial institutions such as Bank of China to support their prudent development.

A three-year lock-up period will expire on Sunday for 171.3 billion BOC shares owned by Central Huijin. The bank would have a total of freely traded 177.8 billion A shares, or 70.05 percent of its outstanding shares, on the Shanghai bourse next Monday. Hong Kong-listed H shares would account for the remaining 29.95 percent stake.

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Central Huijin announced last September that it would buy more of the bank's shares over the following 12 months to support the stock market, which was sagging at that time.

Central Huijin holds Beijing's stakes in about 10 lenders. Among them are China Development Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (1398) as well as brokerages.

Separately, China National Materials (1893) said 179.1 million A shares of its Shanghai-listed subsidiary Sinoma International Engineering will become tradable next Wednesday.