Credit Sleuths in China Uncover Bad Debt Dwarfing Official 1.5%
- Analysts turn detectives to bypass China's official data
- Official number is 1.5%; estimates range from 6% to 21%
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Corporate investigator Violet Ho never put a lot of faith in the bad loan numbers reported by China’s banks.
Crisscrossing provinces from Shandong to Xinjiang, she’s seen too much -- from the shell game of moving assets between affiliated companies to disguise the true state of their finances to cover-ups by bankers loath to admit that loans they made won’t be recovered.