BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's banking watchdog said Wednesday Chinese domestic commercial banks' balance of non-performing loans (NPL) decreased 14 percent through 2010 to stand at 429.3 billion yuan (65.17 billion U.S. dollars) at year-end.

At the end of 2010, the banks' NPL ratio had edged down 0.44 percentage points over the year to 1.14 percent, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said.

Joint-stock commercial banks reported 4.86 billion yuan of NPL at the end of 2010, down 21 percent year on year, and a NPL ratio of 0.53 percent, down 0.32 percentage points.

The CBRC also said the liquidity ratio of commercial banks fell one percentage point year on year to 42.2 percent.

Domestic commercial banks are large-scale commercial banks, joint-stock commercial banks, city commercial banks, rural commercial banks and foreign banks.