"As for a few local governments that have squandered large amounts of money to build extravagant office buildings, they should be asked to move out of their luxury buildings and work in plain offices. They should also be asked to sell their buildings and other assets to pay back the loans they borrowed from banks."

Xia Bin, counselor of the State Council, was quoted by Economic Daily as saying on Tuesday when he was asked how local governments could clear themselves of huge amounts of debt. A national audit conducted in 2011 found that local government debt totaled 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.73 trillion) at the end of 2010, representing more than 26 percent of the year's gross domestic product.