China’s latest round of debt-for-equity swaps aimed at reducing corporate leverage has gained momentum after the central bank freed up commercial banks’ reserves to support the campaign.

As of the end of April, a number of companies had implemented debt-for-equity swaps with investors involving a total of 909.5 billion yuan ($131.6 billion), Lian Weiliang, a deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s economic planning agency, said Wednesday at a press briefing.

Nearly 56% of that amount, or 508 billion yuan, was implemented after last July, when the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for some major banks, said Huang Xiaolong, a deputy head of the PBOC’s financial stability bureau. The RRR cut released around 500 billion yuan in liquidity, which lenders were told should be used to support debt-for-equity swaps. 

The swaps, an initiative launched by the central government in September 2016, had faced criticism for moving more slowly than expected, mainly due to fundraising difficulties and uncertainties about returns on the investments.

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