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Renita Jablonski: As governments work on a financial do-over to get banks to lend again, some banks in the world are doing just fine, thank you. Today, the Bank of China said its earnings last year grew by 14 percent. Marketplace’s Scott Tong has more from Shanghai.

Scott Tong: Bank of China and the other banks reporting earnings this week benefit from what some call the Great Financial Wall of China. By decree, it’s hard for foreign money to rush in, and hard for Chinese money to go out. So Chinese banks largely stayed out of the water of toxic assets.

Matthew Phillips is with Price Waterhouse Coopers in Shanghai:

Matthew Phillips: They were not heavy investors in toxic assets, subprime deriatives, CBOs, CDOs, et cetera. There are regulatory limitations on them doing that. And also they exercise significant amount of caution at the direction of Chinese regulators.

In part because party officials appoint the top bankers.

In a new survey, Phillips found almost 70 percent of Chinese financial institutions plan to expand overseas this year. The main reason is their corporate clients are packing their suitcases, shopping for mines in Australia, oil in Russia, and someday, perhaps a well-known car brand on the block.

In Shanghai, I’m Scott Tong for Marketplace.