City commercial banks in China achieved steady growth last year while the growth in the banking sector slowed down in general, said the China Banking Association on Thursday.

Total assets of city commercial banks amounted to 28.24 trillion yuan ($4.29 trillion) as of the end of 2016, increasing by 24.5 percent year-on-year.

The growth rate is 8.7 percentage points higher than the average growth rate of the Chinese banking industry, said the China Banking Association in a report.

Last year, city commercial banks posted 224.45-billion-yuan profit after tax, up 12.6 percent from 2015. The increase was 8.6 percentage points higher than the banking industry's average growth in profit after tax.

The nonperforming loan ratio of city commercial banks rose 8 basis points to 1.48 percent at the end of last year, 26 basis points lower than the sector's average, the report said.