China's provincial governments not disclosing debt

More than a third of China’s 31 mainland provincial-level governments have failed to disclose to the public how much debt they have, even though they are required to do so, an investigation by the Finance Ministry found. In addition to the 11 provincial-level governments, authorities said, nearly 140 cities – more than 20% of China’s approximately 660 – had not released data detailing how much debt they had amassed by the end of 2014, Caixin reports. The lack of disclosure about budgets and expenditures pose a major threat to the economy because it leaves banks without enough information to assess the risk of further lending to regional and local governments. The State Council said that regional governments had amassed a combined $2.3 trillion in debt at the end of 2014.