China bond sales down in July

BEIJING - China's new bond offerings shrank 4.3 percent year on year to 911 billion yuan ($150 billion) in July, the country's central bank revealed on Friday.

Among the total, new bond sales on the interbank market, the primary channel for bond offerings and trade in China, amounted to 898 billion yuan, down 1.7 percent year on year.

In the first seven months, China's new bond offerings rose 18.8 percent to 6.3 trillion yuan. Among the total, new bond sales on the interbank market hit 6.2 trillion yuan, up 22.2 percent year on year.

By the end of July, China's aggregate bonds outstanding came in at 32.7 trillion yuan, of which 93.1 percent were contributed by the interbank bond market, the bank said.

China is stepping up financial innovation with more efforts to increase the share of direct financing through stock issuance and bond offerings.

The government is pushing for reform in the interbank bond market by improving the bond issuance pricing mechanism, facilitating bond product innovation and diversity, improving bond market information disclosure and strengthening risk-sharing mechanisms.

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