China Daily: “China‘s government debt amounts to about 17.5 trillion yuan ($2.78 trillion), about 43 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, Yang Kaisheng, president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said Tuesday.
The debt is composed of 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) of local government debt and 6.8 trillion yuan ($1.07 trillion) of central government debt, Yang said at a press conference on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary session.”.
via China’s debt-to-GDP ratio hits 43%|Economy|chinadaily.com.cn.
This is shocking news as a year ago (2010) the ratio was only 17.5%! Of course, earlier we blogged about the parlous state of local government debt rising astronomically. This is the result. ;-(
See: http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/774/economics/list-of-national-debt-by-country/
Some of us are so riveted by China’s trade surplus of some $3 trillion, that we forget about its debt ratio. In other words, China is behaving only slightly more frugally than many Western nations. The only difference *and it is an important one) uis that the trade surplus does (just about) cover the debt. 😉
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 