A meeting was held Monday in Nanjing by the provincial party committee and the provincial government to address local governments' hiddendebt risks. Lou Qinjian, secretary of the provincial party committee, gave important instructions. Governor Wu Zhenglong attended the meeting and delivered a speech.
Lou Qinjian said in his instructions that preventing and defusing the hidden debt risks of local governments is a major decision-making arrangement made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council.
All regions and departments must adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping's new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, enhance political stance, uphold the "four consciousnesses", and safeguarding the authority of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and its unified and centralized leadership, he said.
The leading officials of the party committees and governments at all levels in the province should play the role of being the persons of primary responsibility to prevent and resolve major risks, provide strong support for promoting the province’s high-quality development and building a strong and prosperous new high Jiangsu, the CPC provincial chief said.
"Hidden" local government debt is usually raised through non-bond financial channels, which are difficult to keep tabs on or supervise.
The debt is also outside the annual debt quota approved by the country's top legislature.
China completed in August a document on measuring "hidden" local government debt, particularly those incurred since 2015.
It means the central government will take more stringent measures to prevent the continuing increase of local debt not on official budgets as a way to ward off financial risks, analysts said.
The document urges local governments to check the size of their off-budget debt and evaluate the quality of their debts and assets, said the officials, who declined to be named because they are not authorized to comment on the matter.
There have been media reports saying that some local governments have held meetings to implement the requirements of the document, although they did not reveal the details of the guideline.
The major aim of the document is to find out how much of such debt has been raised in the past three years and to urge local governments to work out risk control plans, according to the Finance Ministry.
The last round of checks on local government debt, which ended by 2014, led to a result of 15.7 trillion yuan or $2.3 trillion of debt outstanding. The central authority required that the debt be swapped through issuing bonds within three years, by 2018.
By the end of last year, 10.9 trillion yuan of debt had been swapped, according to the Finance Ministry.
(source:ourjiangsu.com)
