China Railway plans to issue $2.2b in bonds

China Railway Group plans to issue as much as US$2.2 billion (RMB15 billion) in short-term corporate bonds in order to reduce long-term debt, the South China Morning Post reported. "We now have one-third short-term debt and two-thirds long-term debt," the firm’s vice-president Li Jiansheng was quoted as saying. "After issuing the corporate bonds, we can lower our long-term debt to one-third." The firm’s debt-equity ratio was 43.8% in the first half, up 4.1 percentage points from the end of 2007. No details were provided on when the debt issue would take place, nor the interest rate or maturity of the bonds.