China’s overall stock of debt as a share of GDP continued to climb in the second quarter of this year, albeit at a slower pace amid the ongoing economic slowdown.

The overall leverage ratio, which measures the nation’s outstanding debt in the real economy against nominal GDP, increased to 249.5% at the end of the second quarter, up 0.7 percentage points from 248.8% a quarter earlier, according to a report released Tuesday by two government-backed research institutes — the National Institution for Finance & Development (NIFD), and the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The growth in the ratio in the second quarter was lower than the increase of 5.1 percentage points in the first quarter.

The rapid growth in the debt-to-GDP ratio in the first quarter was due in part to a shift in the focus of government policy from deleveraging to stabilizing economic growth, some analysts said.

“Over the second quarter the momentum of excessive leverage growth has been under control,” Chang Xin, a researcher at the NIFD, said at a conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

China’s GDP grew 6.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of this year, the slowest pace in nearly three decades, down from a 6.4% rise in the previous quarter.

Read the full story on Caixin Global later today.

Contact reporter Guo Yingzhe (yingzheguo@caixin.com)

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