BEIJING -- The Agricultural Bank of China, one of China's biggest state-owned banks, said Wednesday that its net profits for the first three quarters of this year jumped 43.59 percent year-on-year to 100.78 billion yuan ($15.88 billion).

The bank attributed the profit increase to a sharp rise in revenues from net interests and growing fees and commissions. Profits from net interests rose 28.35 percent year-on-year to 223.36 billion yuan, while profits from fees and commissions amounted to 54.82 billion yuan, up 61.1 percent, during the period.

The bank's total assets hit 11.59 trillion yuan as of the end of September, up 12.11 percent compared with the end of 2010.

The bank also enjoyed drops in its non-performing loans (NPL) and NPL ratio. As of the third quarter, the bank's NPLs totalled 87.96 billion yuan, 12.45 billion yuan less than the end of 2010; its NPL ratio declined 0.43 percentage points from the 2010 yearend level to 1.6 percent.

The bank's capital adequacy ratio, an important gauge for measuring the financial strength of a bank, jumped to 11.85 percent, narrowly exceeding the country's regulated requirement of 11.5 percent and standing 0.26 percentage points higher than the ratio recorded at the end of 2010.