31 provinces and cities in the first half of the first half of the government bond issue rankings: Shandong ranked first with 259.9 billion yuan
Author: Chen Yikan
If local governments don’t have enough money, they can borrow money by issuing local government bonds.
How about issuing bonds and borrowing money in 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in the first half of this year?
On July 26, the Ministry of Finance announced the issuance of local government bonds in 31 provinces in the first half of this year.
In the first half of the year, 31 provinces across the country issued a total of 3341.1 billion yuan of local government bonds.
Judging from the amount of debt issued by provinces in the first half of the year, Shandong (including Qingdao) temporarily ranked first with 259.9 billion yuan, Guangdong (including Shenzhen) followed closely with 253.3 billion yuan, and Sichuan with 215.5 billion yuan. Ranked third.
The scale of bond issuance elsewhere is less than 200 billion yuan.
Among them, 16 places including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, Hebei, Liaoning, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Fujian, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xinjiang have issued bonds ranging from 100 billion yuan to 200 billion yuan.
The remaining other provinces and cities have issued less than 100 billion bonds. Among them, Shanghai did not issue local government bonds in the first half of the year, and Shanghai officially began issuing bonds in July.
Of course, due to different bond issuance quotas and different progress of bond issuance, the scale of bond issuance may change throughout the year.
Judging from the situation of last year, the top 5 bond issuances were Shandong, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan and Zhejiang.
Many local debt experts told China Business News that local government bonds can be divided into new bonds and refinancing bonds according to their purpose. The financing of refinancing bonds can only be used to repay existing debt, that is, borrowing the new to repay the old.
At present, the total amount of new bonds and refinancing bonds of local governments across the country is determined by the National People's Congress, and the Ministry of Finance allocates this total to 31 provinces and cities.
Generally speaking, when the Ministry of Finance allocates new debt issuance quotas, it will take into account factors such as local financial strength, debt risks, financing needs, project maturity, and national macro-control needs.
Generally speaking, the stronger the financial strength of the local government, the lower the debt risk, the more expenditures for major central projects, and the greater the financing demand, the greater the amount of debt issued, and vice versa.
The allocation of refinancing bond quotas takes more into consideration the maturity scale of local bonds.
According to data from the Ministry of Finance, among the 3341.1 billion yuan of government bonds issued by local governments in the first half of this year, the newly issued bonds amounted to 1.480 billion yuan, and the refinancing bond issuance was 1861.1 billion yuan.
Judging from the scale of new bond issuances in 31 provinces in the first half of this year, Shandong, Guangdong, and Sichuan are still the top three.
However, in the ranking of refinancing bond issuance in the first half of the year, Jiangsu ranked first with 158.4 billion yuan, Guizhou ranked second with 109.7 billion yuan, and Shandong, Liaoning, Guangdong, and Sichuan all slightly exceeded 100 billion yuan.
Where was the money borrowed from the local government spent in the first half of the year?
Obviously, the above-mentioned 1.86 trillion yuan of refinancing bonds are used to repay the stock of government debt.
Where will the other 1.48 trillion yuan of new bond funds be used?
At present, the Ministry of Finance has disclosed the investment of about 1 trillion yuan in new special bonds.
Xiang Zhongxin, deputy director of the Budget Department of the Ministry of Finance, recently stated at a press conference on fiscal revenue and expenditure in the first half of the year that in accordance with the unified deployment of the State Council, the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other major national regional strategies The project has been included in the key support scope of local government special bonds in 2021.
According to preliminary summary, about half of the new special bonds issued by local governments from January to June are invested in major projects in the fields of transportation infrastructure, municipal administration and industrial parks; about 30% are invested in affordable housing projects and health, education, pensions, cultural tourism And other major projects in social undertakings; about 20% are invested in major projects in the fields of agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, energy, and urban and rural cold chain logistics.
Therefore, the new bond funds are mainly used for major infrastructure construction projects for the people's livelihood.
In the first half of the year, due to the strengthened supervision of local government bonds and less pressure to stabilize growth, the progress of local bond issuance was slow. The scale of new bond issuance in the first half of the year was almost "halved" compared with the same period last year.
However, the issuance of local government bonds has accelerated in recent times. According to the annual budget arrangement for the new limit of local government bonds of 4.47 trillion yuan, the scale of new local bond issuance in the second half of the year will be close to 3 trillion yuan.