China’s private sector has missed out on the country’s credit boom over the past eight years, a new study has shown, despite Beijing’s efforts to rebalance the economy away from state-dominated heavy industry.
Private sector debt has fallen from 48 per cent of total assets in 2008 to 35 per cent in 2015, according to economists at Beijing University. Over the same period, state sector debt rose slightly to 53 per cent, even though China’s state-owned enterprises are only two-thirds as profitable as their private sector counterparts.
“Good leverage is decreasing as bad leverage increases,” said Huang Yiping at Beijing University’s National School of Development.