Leading CBRC official calls for more debt disclosure

A high-ranking financial official warned on Sunday that local government debt risk is the country's top financial and fiscal risk, and called for more disclosure of debt data.

Liao Min, director of the China Banking Regulatory Commission's Shanghai Office and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the comment at the political advisory body's group discussion.

"Either in terms of financial risk or fiscal risk, local government financing vehicles' risk ranked top," Liao said.

Local authorities set up thousands of funding units, known as local government financing vehicles, to finance projects from sewage systems to subways after a 1994 budget law barred them from directly issuing notes. Their fundraising helped regional liabilities swell 67 percent from the end of 2010 to 17.9 trillion yuan ($2.86 trillion) as of June 2013.

"There is very limited information in the budget report about how the principal and interest (of local government debt) are repaid," he said.

"Disclosure of this information is critical as it helps us evaluate the risk, and encourages social capital to join with us in reducing the risk," he said.

His opinion was echoed by Ma Weihua, former president of China Merchants Bank and a member of CPPCC National Committee. Ma called on the authorities to clarify the specifics of local government debt and release information on the total amount and structure of the debt to the public.

"The central government needs to clarify the proportion of debt that the local government is responsible for and the procedure on how to handle this kind of debt," said Ma.

Xie Yu contributed to the story.