China's Government: Local Governments Debt Unknown

The Chinese government said Friday that it doesn’t know how much debt local governments are sitting on but warned the total is likely to be greater than the amount estimated in an audit conducted nearly three years ago. Zhu Guangyao, a Vice-Minister of Finance, made the admission to reporters at a briefing warning that the total amount is larger than the CNY10.7 trillion that was acknowledged as part of an official audit taken at the end of 2010. “Despite existing risks, the government needs to get clear the outstanding number of local government debt, the exact amount of it,” Zhu…