China's bond issuance rises to 3.7 trillion yuan in June

BEIJING — The value of bonds issued in China totaled 3.7 trillion yuan (about $547 billion) in June, a significant rise from 2.9 trillion yuan in May, official data showed Tuesday.

Bonds issued on the inter-bank market reached 3.5 trillion yuan last month, also more than the 2.7 trillion yuan in May, data from the People's Bank of China (PBOC) showed.

By the end of June, bonds outstanding stood at 68.2 trillion yuan, including 11.9 trillion yuan of treasury bonds, 12.4 trillion of local government bonds, and 16 trillion of financial bonds, PBOC data showed.

China has the world's third largest bond market, which is growing rapidly and opening more widely across the globe.

Authorities approved a mainland-Hong Kong bond connect program in mid-May, allowing investors from both sides to trade bonds on each other's interbank markets.

Thanks to the program, the Chinese bond market could see up to $100 billion of annual capital inflows during the next five years and combined foreign bond holding would account for 4 to 5 percent of the country's GDP, analysts have estimated.

In 2016, China issued 36.1 trillion yuan in various kinds of bonds, up 54.2 percent from 2015, data showed.