China’s Bond Defaults Pile Up at Fastest Pace on Record
- Threshold set to be reached months faster than recent years
- Developers, electronics, airlines drive 2021’s delinquencies
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Chinese corporations are defaulting on local bonds at the fastest pace on record, as authorities ramp up efforts to introduce more financial discipline and transparency in the world’s second-largest debt market.
Firms so far this year have failed to make payments on 99.8 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) of onshore bonds, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. While 2021 is set to be the fourth straight year the 100 billion yuan level has been topped, it previously hadn’t happened before September. For all of 2015, when China’s stock market crashed, defaults totaled just 8.9 billion yuan.