The pending dual IPOs of China CITIC Bank are expected to be the year's largest and raise more than 30 billion yuan for the country's seventh largest commercial bank.

The bank is expected to list on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets on April 27.

The bank plans to issue 2.3 billion A shares in Shanghai and 4.9 billion H shares in Hong Kong.

Although the price of a share has not been announced, insiders expect it will be between four and 4.5 yuan. If all shares are sold at that price it would raise more than 32 billion (4 billion U.S. dollars) for the bank.

Last year the IPO of China's ICBC raised more than 19 billion U.S. dollars.

The China CITIC Bank says it will use the funds to help raise its capital adequacy ratio.

If all the shares in the dual IPOs are sold they will account for 18.77 percent of the bank's total shares.

CITIC bank has been promoting its A shares since receiving approval for its Shanghai IPO on April 2 from the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

The bank received approval to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier in March.

CITIC bank is scheduled to announce the price per share on April 23.

The A shares of CITIC Bank will be offered first to its strategic investors and other institutional investors, and then bemade available to the public.

Strategic investors will be allocated shares valued at three billion yuan accounting for about 23 percent of the total value ofthe A-share IPO.

CITIC Bank reported 3.73 billion yuan of net profit at the end of 2006, up from 3.15 billion yuan recorded for 2005. The bank predicted its net profit will hit 5.69 billion yuan in 2007, according to the 21st Century Business Herald.

CITIC Bank has assets of just under 100 billion U.S. dollars.

Its capital adequacy ratio, the measure of its own capital in proportion to its outstanding loans, was raised to 9.41 percent by the end of 2006, while its non-performing loan ratio was 2.5 percent.

CITIC Bank is the second company to simultaneously list on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges after the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.