China's central SOEs see lower debt-asset ratio

Source: Xinhua | 2019-10-18

The debt-to-asset ratio at China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) continued to decline in the first nine months of 2019.
The average debt-to-asset ratio of centrally-administered SOEs stood at 65.7 percent at the end of September, down 0.2 percentage points from the same period last year and down 0.1 percentage points from the end of August, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) told a press conference Thursday.
As of the end of September, the debt-to-asset ratio of centrally-administered SOEs in the sectors such as mining, power and electronics industries fell by more than 1 percentage point from the beginning of 2019.
China has set a timetable for SOEs deleveraging as part of its efforts to defuse financial risks. The average debt-to-asset ratio of SOEs should be reduced by 2 percentage points by the end of 2020, as compared with that at the end of 2017.