It is being reported that Beijing has told state-owned banks to roll over existing local government debt with longer-term loans at lower interest rates. Adding that they will set up an emergency liquidity tool with the banks and that the interest rates on the rolled-over loans should not be below China’s Treasury bond rates – so as to not see banks incur heavy losses.
Well, I guess when you can do whatever the hell you want, you don’t really have to play by the rules. For some context, China local government debt totaled to roughly ¥92 trillion in 2022 and that is over 60% higher than what it was in 2019. Boom.