China's first bill credit rating report was released on Monday, a move to promote the development of the Chinese bill market.

"The bill market in China is very large, but we still rely on experience to judge the credit level, therefore, we carried out the report to help institutions and individuals have business based on our results," said Li Huajun, chairman of PJ.com, an online bill financial platform and the main author of the report.

The report surveyed 183 Chinese banks, five large-scale commercial banks, 12 stock-holding commercial banks, 89 city commercial banks, 19 foreign banks in China, four provincial rural commercial banks, as well as 54 rural commercial banks.

It showed that the bill credit ratings of large- and medium-sized banks are better than those of small lenders. The ratings of large-scale commercial banks and stock-holding commercial banks are the best, and those of small rural banks in underdeveloped areas are the worst.

The report also studied the bill credit of six sectors — property, telecom and technology, raw material, light industry, heavy industry and energy.

It showed that the energy sector ranked the highest and the property sector ranked the lowest.

By the end of last year, the accumulative value of commercial bills totaled 20.3 trillion yuan ($3.3 trillion), while at the end of 2001 it was 1.27 trillion yuan, according to the People's Bank of China.