China's Hidden Debt

A recent article from The Economist shows that debit in China could be substantially high than published, due to the hidden debts of its local governments.

The official public debt of the central government was only 19% of GDP at the end of 2010. Adding the debts of local governments, the non-performing loans of the banks and other liabilities, such as central-bank bills, the public debt amounts to about 80% of GDP according to Andrew Batson and Janet Zhang of GaveKalDragonomics, a consultancy in Beijing. That sounds high for a developing country.

The government has never revealed how much debt the local-government vehicles took on. Despite this opacity, or perhaps because of it, these hidden liabilities have become one of the four big worries haunting China-watchers, along with the property bubble, inflation and lightly regulated trust companies. Victor Shih of Northwestern University has described the debts as a “big rock-candy mountain”. In June 2010, he projected it might reach as high as 24 trillion yuan ($3.7 trillion) by the end of 2012, or over half of China’s GDP.