As of December 2nd, the scale of bond issuance by local authorities of the Chinese Communist Party has exceeded 1 trillion yuan for the first time in history.
According to a report from “First Financial” on December 2nd, data from the platform institution Enterprise Early Warning Data shows that as of December 2nd, the national scale of bond issuance by local authorities is approximately 1.01 trillion yuan. According to official data released by the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Finance, this is the first time in history that the annual scale of bond issuance by local authorities has exceeded 1 trillion yuan.
The report quoted Professor Wen Laicheng from the Central University of Finance and Economics, who commented that in recent years, the scale of bond issuance by local governments has been growing rapidly, with the outstanding debt of local authorities now exceeding 5 trillion yuan. However, Wen Laicheng believes that while the outstanding debt is within the quota, there is a need to be cautious about the challenges of too rapid debt growth on the sustainability of local finances in the medium and long term.
According to data from the CCP Ministry of Finance, as of the end of September 2025, the outstanding debt of local authorities nationwide was approximately 5.37 trillion yuan.
Starting from 2020, local debt in China has been soaring each year. In 2020, the scale of local government bond issuance exceeded 6 trillion yuan, rising to 7 trillion yuan for the first time in 2021. Both 2023 and 2024 saw the scale of local government bond issuance surpass 9 trillion yuan, with approximately 9.8 trillion yuan in 2024, approaching 10 trillion yuan. In 2025, it surpassed 1 trillion yuan.
The report states that the debt issued in 2025 is mainly used for investment and to continue replacing the implicit debts of local governments.