yuanSHANGHAI: China's Ministry of Finance will auction a total of 35.5 billion yuan ($5.56 billion) in three- and five-year bonds on behalf of local governments on Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, respectively, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

It will auction 17.6 billion yuan of three-year bonds on Oct. 17 and 17.9 billion yuan of five-year bonds on Oct. 24, the ministry said in the statement published on the website for China's major bond issues, www.chinabond.com.cn.

The ministry has said it plans to issue a total of 200 billion yuan in bonds on behalf of local governments this year. It has so far issued 141.6 billion yuan in such bonds.

Municipal and provincial governments are currently not allowed to raise funds in the debt market directly.

The heavy debt load of local governments, which have borrowed vast sums of money through separate financing vehicles to fund local projects, has prompted concern over potential defaults and the burden it would place on the financial sector.

Following is a breakdown of which local governments are issuing what amount of debt. Figures are in billions of yuan.

Copyright Reuters, 2011

Comments

Comments are closed.