China partnership picks up speed

China’s public-private partnership project construction has entered the “fast lane” and will become a unified, standardised, transparent market, a government research office says.

As of the end of June, there were 13,554 projects nationwide with investment of 16.3-trillion yuan ($2.4-trillion), according to data from the China Public Private Partnerships Centre, Xinhua news agency reported.

More than 34% of projects had reached the implementation phase, it said.

“Our country’s public-private partnership project construction has entered the fast lane, an active period,” Wang Yiming, deputy director of the State Council Development Research Centre, said. But Wang warned that as more projects moved from construction to operations, more risks were exposed, such as excessive financing and impractical projects.

In recent years, the government has tightened controls on new local government debt to help ward off risks following a borrowing binge since the global financial crisis. Authorities have also vowed to prevent local governments from using publicprivate partnerships, government investment funds and government procurement services as “disguised channels” for raising debt.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, has said resolving local debt risks was important to ensure the country’s economic and fiscal sustainability and financial safety.