Chinese banks defend debt management strategy

Chinese officials hit back at critics of the country’s mounting debt pile on Thursday, saying the country’s banks had taken measures to ensure non-performing loans would not pose a systemic risk to China’s financial system, the Financial Times reports. “China’s banking sector is generally stable and risks are under control,” Wang Shengbang, a senior official with the country’s banking regulator, said at a briefing. According to Mr. Wang, Chinese banks wrote off non-performing loans (NPLs) worth more than Rmb 2tn ($304bn) over the past three years after the China Banking Regulatory Commission ordered the sector to boost provisions. In the depths of the global financial crisis, the Chinese government launched a Rmb4tn investment program that was lauded at the time for providing a critical boost to world economic growth.