China steps up efforts to rein in central SOE debt

Enterprises will be asked to repay bonds, reduce systemic issues

China aims to cut the average debt-to-asset ratio by another 2 percentage points for its centrally administered, State-owned enterprises by 2020, the country's State asset regulator said on Wednesday.

The average debt ratio for central SOEs stood at 66.3 percent by the end of 2017, down 0.4 percentage point from the beginning of the year. Sixty-two of these big companies have managed to lower their debt ratio in comparison with the previous year and 40 of them saw this figure fall by more than 1 percent.