On August 5th, Yicai (China Business Network) cited public data saying that, in the first seven months of this year, China’s local governments issued approximately 4.2 trillion yuan (US$ 590 billion) worth of bonds, a year-on-year decrease of about 16 percent. Among them, refinancing bonds totaled around 2 trillion yuan, primarily used to repay the principal of maturing government bonds or existing debt. This means local governments were essentially “borrowing new debt to repay old debt.” Additionally, 2.2 trillion yuan of new bonds were issued (i.e. bonds not used to pay off old debts), comprising 1.8 trillion yuan in new special bonds and 400 billion yuan in new general bonds.
Source: Lianhe Zaobao, August 8, 2024
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/realtime/china/story20240808-4443056