Financial China

LGFV loans, still a time bomb

  • Published 30 Jun 2011

The new figures released by the National Audit Office grossly understate the scale of local government financing vehicle debt in the economy.

Fresh data released by the National Audit Office (NAO) on June 27 reported debt to local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) at Rmb 4,971bn ($769bn, £479bn, €533bn), well below previous estimates by both the China Banking and Regulatory Commission (CBRC) and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the central bank. Such a large disparity between the figures leads us to conclude that NAO figures should be discounted.

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