China's direct govt debt risks controllable

BEIJING - China disclosed its total government debt on Monday and said that debt risk was under control.

China's total public debt to GDP ratio is about 53.3 percent, with 31.5 percent of that attributed to local government debt and 21.8 percent down to the central government, said Lu Ting, chief China economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a research note.

"We believe the markets and the Chinese government should be alarmed by the rapidly rising leverage, but we do not believe China is on the brink of a debt crisis," he wrote.

Rising government debt

The National Audit Office (NAO) said on Monday, after two months of nationwide audits in August and September, that governments in China were liable for a total direct debt of 20.7 trillion yuan ($3.4 trillion) at the end of June, up 8.6 percent, or 1.63 trillion yuan, since the end of 2012.

Total debt guaranteed by governments at various levels amounted to 2.93 trillion yuan at the end of June. Over and above this amount, debt which governments might have some liability for amounted to 6.65 trillion yuan.

In breakdown, direct central government debt stood at 9.81 trillion yuan the end of June, up 4 percent (375 billion yuan) on the end of 2012. Treasury bonds, loans from international financial institutions and foreign governments account for nearly 84 percent and should be paid by the central budget.

The remaining 10.89 trillion yuan was borrowed by local governments, an increase of 13 percent (1.25 trillion yuan) over the end of 2012.

The debt guaranteed by the central government was 260 billion yuan; debt guaranteed by local governments, 2.67 trillion yuan.

While debt for which the central government might shoulder some of the rescue burden stood at 2.3 trillion yuan in June. That for local governments amounted to 4.34 trillion yuan.

Regarding local government debt, direct debt borrowed by the 31 provincial-level regions totaled 1.78 trillion yuan.

The 391 prefecture-level cities had borrowed a total of 4.84 trillion yuan and about 2,778 counties owed a total of 3.96 trillion yuan, according to NAO. The remaining 307 billion yuan was borrowed by 3,3091 towns nationwide.