Cabinet Proposes Law Letting It Set Debt Quotas for Local Gov'ts

(Beijing) – The State Council has sent a bill to the legislature that would give the cabinet the power to set the levels of debt that lower levels of government can take on, a move required by the updated Budget Law.

The quotas that the State Council set for the country's 31 provinces, regions and municipalities would include debt held at the end of 2014 and new amounts that the National People's Congress approved earlier this year, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said when explaining the proposed law to legislators on August 24.