Wuhan names and shames debtors in repayment demand

The finance regulator of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected, has publicly urged hundreds of companies to repay debt owed to the government.

The Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Finance released a list on Friday of 259 entities, including some owned by the state, detailing their outstanding debts as of December 2018.

According to the list, published in the Yangtze River Daily, the debts amounted to about 300 million yuan (HK332 million) and ranged from 10,000 yuan to more than 23 million yuan.

The bureau’s unusual public action comes as local governments grapple with growing financial distress, in part induced by the cost of zero-Covid controls over the past three years.

In Wuhan, municipal revenue fell 8.5 per cent year on year in the first quarter, according to data released by the finance regulator. Debtors on the list include stateowned and private enterprises, research institutes and district finance bureaus in the city.

A car manufacturer topped the list, owing 23.54 million yuan, followed by a company that owed 20 million yuan and another that still had to repay 15 million yuan.

Uni-President Enterprises Corporation, a major food production company, owed 10 million yuan, according to the bureau.

District finance bureaus in the city owed amounts ranging from 500,000 yuan to 12.52 million yuan, with the bureau in Jiangxia district owing the most.

The municipal finance regulator is responsible for managing the city’s financial revenue, spending and oversight.

It jointly published the list with state-owned Wuhan Yangtze River Asset Management, which has been entrusted to handle matters related to the debts.

In a statement in the newspaper, the financial regulator and the asset management company said they had used various ways to notify the debtors of the amounts owed and collect the payments, but “the debtors and guarantors mentioned below have still not paid their debts to the municipal bureau of finance”.

“Each of the debtors and the corresponding guarantors listed below and the successors of the debtors and guarantors are requested to fulfil their relevant statutory debt repayment obligation to Wuhan Yangtze River Asset Management immediately from the date of announcement.”

China has sought to put the economy back on track since it abandoned its zero-Covid restrictions late last year but the recovery has been uneven, particularly in the manufacturing and private sectors. The economic indicators for April suggest that growth is losing momentum.

Profits at industrial firms in the first four months fell 20.6 per cent from the same time last year, while profits at the companies rose 3.7 per cent in April from a year earlier, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday.

“We are facing a complex global environment and insufficient domestic demand. There are many difficulties [preventing a] continuous recovery of industrial profits,” the statistics bureau said.

Each of the debtors ... listed below are requested to fulfil their relevant statutory debt

STATEMENT IN YANGTZE RIVER DAILY