Local government bond issuance in China for the first seven months of the year has approached the 4 trillion yuan (approx. USD$620 billion) threshold according to the latest raft of official data.
Local government bond issuance for the period from January to July totalled 3.9979 trillion yuan, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance via its official website.
This included 1.8583 trillion yuan in normal bonds and 2.1396 trillion yuan in special bonds. New bonds totalled 1.8833 trillion yuan, while re-financing bonds were 2.1146 trillion yuan.
The average term of local government bond was 10.6 years for the period, and the average issuance rate was 3.42%.
For the period from January to July a total of 1.6692 trillion yuan in principal repayments were made for maturing local government bonds, as well as 531.2 billion yuan in interest payments.
Local government bond issuance was 656.8 billion yuan for the month of July, while as of the end of July the nationwide local government debt balance was 27.9901 trillion yuan, within the quota approved by the National People’s Congress earlier in the year.
