China’s Total Domestic Debt Hit 317% of GDP by April for Record Quarterly Increase: IFF

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A new report from the International Institute of Finance (IIF) sheds light on the current state of China’s overall debt levels.

The report published by the Washington-headquartered IFF in May indicates that China’s total domestic debt reached 317% of GDP in the first quarter of 2020.

The 17 point increase compared to 300% in the final quarter of 2019 marks the largest quarterly rise on record, during the period of China’s peak struggle to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Figures from Chinese think tank the National Institution for Finance and Development (NIFD) point to total debt of 245.4% of GDP as of the end of 2019, for a rise of 6.1 percentage points compared to the preceding year.

IIF figures also show that household debt rose to 54.3% of Chinese GDP in the final quarter of last year, as compared to 51.4% during the same period of 2018.

China’s domestic debt has been rising at rate of around 20% per year on average since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, significantly outpacing GDP growth.

IFF data indicates that China’s outstanding debt claims on the rest of the world breached $5.5 trillion in 2019 – or over 6% of global GDP, as compared to $875 billion in 2004.

The IFF said that the surge in China’s lending abroad was driven by the Belt and Road initiative, which has channelled $730 billion in lending to more than 112 countries since 2013.

Figures from China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) put the China’s foreign debt at USD$2.05 trillion at the end of 2019, as compared to $2.03 trillion the preceding quarter.

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1 COMMENT

  1. The report pub­lished by the Wash­ing­ton-head­quar­tered IFF in May in­di­cates that Chi­na’s to­tal do­mes­tic debt reached 317% of GDP in the first quar­ter of 2020.

    Really, how reliable they really are ??!! The last report actually turned out to be rather wrong as anything else and the statistical methods were questionable. Where are the links??!!

    Then there are at least three different numbers of so so called private debt numbers circling in wstern “think-couds”.
    And let’s not forget who is financing those institutions and thnk tanks and especially the IIF which got the American triggerd financial world crisis totally wrong . The NIFD also is partly financed hy foreign “donors”.

    And by the way the Brown University did a study of Forbes economic reporting on China two years agao and it turned out that allmost 85 % of it got it prettymuch wrong.
    Also Forbes deleting your comments when you counter them with OPEC numbers or statistics which are in general far more authentic and acurate than anything Forbes.

    The more I follow you the more I notice how biased at times you choose your “sources”.
    The other problem is no further linking aka proof to get a better understanding. because some of your articles were false or wrong and often hard to verify.

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