"Bloomberg News tallied the debt disclosed by all 231 local government financing companies that sold bonds, notes or commercial paper through Dec. 10 this year. The total amounted to 3.96 trillion yuan ($622 billion), mostly in bank loans, more than the current size of the European bailout fund.
There are 6,576 of such entities across China, according to a June count by the National Audit Office, which put their total debt at 4.97 billion yuan. That means the 231 borrowers studied by Bloomberg have alone amassed more than three-quarters of the overall debt.
The fact so few of the companies have accumulated that much debt suggests a bigger problem, says Fraser Howie, the Singapore-based managing director of CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets who has written two books on China’s financial system.
“You should be more worried than you think,” he said of Bloomberg’s findings. “Certainly more worried than the banks will tell you.
“You know how this story ends -- badly,” he said."
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