China Beige Book: Not Easy to Assess Extent of Debt Levels

It’s hard for China to get on top of its high local-government debt problem because it doesn’t really know the full extent of debt levels, the president of China Beige Book International said on Wednesday.

China’s state auditor said in late December that local governments had total outstanding debt of almost $3 trillion at the end of June last year. The results showed that debt incurred by local government was up 67 percent from the last audit in 2011.

Even with that assessment, it’s not easy to assess the extent of debt levels, said Leland Miller, president of the China Beige Book (CBB), a survey on national, regional and sectoral economic conditions in the world’s second biggest economy.

CNBC

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