China has increased the transparency of its massive local government debt by allowing local governments to release independent reports on their liabilities.
China Development Bank (CDB) lent 996.8 billion yuan ($163 billion), two third of its total loans in 2013, to boost urbanization, the bank said on Sunday.
Chinese local governments will issue new debt in 2014 to repay old loans, since a large amount of local government debts will mature in the near term, said analysts in Hong Kong.
The Ministry of Finance issued a guideline to boost financial support to counties, which are key links in grassroots administration.
China's top economic planner will allow bond swaps in an effort to avoid defaults in the local government-created separate investment agencies.
The red-hot property market in 2013 pushed Beijing's land transfer fees to a record high of 182.18 billion yuan ($30 billion), 2.8 times that for 2012.
"We believe the markets and the Chinese government should be alarmed by the rapidly rising leverage, but we do not believe China is on the brink of debt crisis."
China's local government debt and contingent liabilities ballooned to 17.89 trillion yuan as of the end of June, according to audit results.
The National Audit Office said that governments at various levels in China were liable for a total direct debt of $3.4 trillion as of the end of June 2013.
Local governments might be allowed to handle their nonperforming assets in a broader way to tackle the increasing risks feared to exist in China's banking system.
Bad loans by China's lenders rose 24.1 billion yuan ($3.96 billion) in the third quarter, the biggest quarterly rise since the fourth quarter of 2005.
China's overall debt level is in a safe and controllable range, Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday, pledging to continually strengthen the auditing of loans by local governments to limit potential risks.
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