China to issue record 3.9 trillion yuan of special bonds in 2024: official

China

China to issue record 3.9 trillion yuan of special bonds in 2024: official

2024-10-12 17:36 Last Updated At：20:27

China's local governments are set to issue new special-purpose bonds totaling 3.9 trillion yuan (about 552 billion U.S. dollars) this year, marking the highest in history, a senior official said on Saturday.

As of the end of September, 3.6 trillion yuan (about 509 billion U.S. dollars) worth of special-purpose bonds have been issued, accounting for 92.5 percent of the annual quota, Vice Minister of Finance Wang Dongwei told reporters at a press conference in Beijing.

In recent years, the Ministry of Finance have jointly established policies and mechanisms for the management of special-purpose bonds with relevant departments to give further play to the bonds' key role in driving effective investment and stabilizing macroeconomy, Wang noted.

He said the ministry will further expand the scope of the use of special-purpose bonds, improve management mechanisms, maintain the intensity and pace of government investment, and properly reduce financing costs to promote high-quality development.

"We will improve the management of the list of special-purpose bond investments and increase areas in which they can be used as project capital to maximize their scope of use. Special-purpose bonds will be used to support the purchase of existing commercial properties as government-subsidized housing. Appropriate support will be provided for building infrastructure in forward-looking and strategic emerging industries to accelerate the development of new quality productive forces," Wang said.

Efforts will also be made to open green channels for projects under construction to ensure smooth transition from planning to construction of projects, speed up the issuance and use of special-purpose bonds and construction progress of projects to generate tangible outcomes as soon as possible, and give full play to the guiding and leading role of government investments, according to Wang.

"We will strengthen expenditure supervision of funds raised from bonds and enforce responsibilities of project management departments and constructors. We will improve the asset ledger of special-purpose bond projects and manage project assets by category to ensure a balance between government liabilities and project assets. A special-purpose bond early repayment approach and a bond repayment reserve system will be established to guarantee sources for repayment of special-purpose bonds," Wang said.

Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew

The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.

Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.

The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.

Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.