Bank of Communications Ltd., China's fifth largest lender by assets, plans to raise nearly 20 billion yuan in a Shanghai initial public offering in the first half of next year, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The bank _ which became the first Chinese bank to list Hong Kong last June _ has hired CITIC Securities Co., China Galaxy Securities Co., Haitong Securities Co. and Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Co. to underwrite its domestic share sale, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the situation.

The four brokers won the mandate last month and are working to draw up the necessary listing documents for the bank, also called BoCom, the report said.

A BoCom spokeswoman in Hong Kong declined to comment on the report Thursday, saying she had to consult the bank's headquarters in Shanghai.

Other Chinese banks including the country's fourth-largest lender, China Construction Bank, are considering selling shares in Shanghai _ partly because the government wants major companies that have hit the overseas market to also list on the domestic market, the report said.

China's biggest bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., made history last month by making the first ever simultaneous Hong Kong and Shanghai listing. The lender raised US$21.2 billion in the world's largest IPO, surpassing the record US$18.4 billion raised by the NTT DoCoMo Inc. IPO in 1998.