, Columnist
China's Borrowers Have an $890 Billion Problem
Cash-strapped firms are facing a wall of debt due this year. That’s a problem for industrial companies getting less government help.
I got by with a little help from my friends.
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Chinese industrial borrowers are strapped for cash, as billions of dollars of debt come due this year. The ones that benefited from Beijing’s largess should be most worried.
Issuers are on the hook for more than 6 trillion yuan4 ($890 billion) in 2019, up 15 percent from a year earlier. Companies in sectors including mining and materials, capital goods and real estate make up 4 trillion of the pile – and of that, industrial companies comprise about 60 percent.