China April borrowing includes RMB 1tn in municipal notes

Global banks are redoing the math on the apparent slowdown in Chinese borrowing in April to include 1 trillion yuan ($153 billion) of regional government notes. The conclusion, according to Bloomberg, is the debt binge is far from over. Including record municipal bond sales, total social financing jumped 17% from a year earlier, the most since 2014, to 1.76 trillion yuan, UBS Group AG estimates. Growth in adjusted total credit quickened to 17.7% from 17.1% in March, according to Deutsche Bank AG. The official reading, which excludes borrowing by local governments, came out on Friday and showed a 29% slide to 751 billion yuan.