Bank of China Q2 net profit up 5 pct, matching f'casts

HONG KONG Aug 23 (Reuters) - Bank of China, the country's No.4 lender, reported a 5.1 percent rise in second-quarter net profit on Thursday, its slowest quarterly profit growth in over 3 years.

Bank of China said it made a net profit of 71.6 billion yuan in January-June, up 7.7 percent from the 66.51 billion yuan during the same period a year earlier.

April-June net profit was 34.84 billion yuan, according to Reuters calculations from company figures. This is higher than the 33.1 billion yuan a year earlier, and roughly in line with expectations from a Reuters survey of nine analysts of 34.55 billion yuan.

Non-performing loans fell to 0.94 percent from 0.97 percent at the end of March, the bank added. (Reporting by Kelvin Soh)