China’s local authorities sped up issuing Local Government Bonds (LGBs) on a large scale, with the total amount climbing to trillions of yuan (billions of U.S. dollars) as of September. The issuance of LGBs soared to 6.08 trillion yuan (about $1.1 trillion) from January to August, surging by 24 percent year-on-year. Among them, a newly…

News Analysis Beijing has recently ordered local governments to accelerate the listing and issuance of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure sector, pledging to grant policy support. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is currently seeking to strengthen infrastructure funding channels and alleviate local debt risk, while easing pressure on the central government’s finance….

Chinese government land sales fell significantly through 2021, reversing a six-year streak of gains, as a cash crunch gripped the country’s most indebted developers and worsening local governments’ debt stress. Land sales in 2021 declined over 20 percent on average from a year earlier, with a deeper fall in the main development force of second-…