Why is China's debt to GDP said to be 30% in some places while 200%+ in others?

Discussion in 'Economics' started by Newmoney24, Mar 4, 2014.

  1. I believe China is in a massive credit bubble, what I can't understand is these discrepancies in numbers.

    For instance, here, it says China's debt to GDP is 31.7%

    while I have heard other sources say as high as over 200% (somewhere I read 250% even).


    Thanks for your input
     
  2. Depends on what sort of debt is included in the tally. 30% or thereabouts is the sovereign debt/GDP, i.e. it's what you get when only the central govt's obligations are included. If you start including the debt owed by the local govt's, the figure is probably arnd 2x that. If you want to get a measure of total leverage, you can include all sorts of private debt, which is probably how you get to 200+%.