Wuhan Publicly Names Hundreds of Debtors Amid Financial Woes

(Bloomberg) — Central China’s city of Wuhan publicly named hundreds of debtors in a local newspaper article demanding payment, a rare move underscoring the fiscal problems facing local governments.

The city’s finance bureau printed a list Friday of 259 entities with outstanding payments dating back to December 2018 in the Yangtze River Daily — the official paper of the Wuhan government. The debts listed totaled more than 300 million yuan ($42.4 million). While the Wuhan municipal government’s revenue hit 50.77 billion yuan in the first quarter of the year, that marked an 8.5% decline from the same period last year.