The national issuance of local debt has exceeded 1.45 trillion yuan, and nearly half of the new quota has been used.

　　Wind data shows that as of April 10, local government bonds issued across the country have exceeded 1.45 trillion yuan. By the end of the first quarter, more than 80% of the new debt limit of 1.39 trillion yuan issued in advance had been completed. Overall, the issuance quota has accounted for nearly half of the newly added local debt quota of 308 million yuan in the whole year, and the effect of projects under construction such as local debt "blood transfusion" infrastructure continues to appear.

　　The industry expects that the issuance fever will continue in the second quarter, and the scale may be the same as that in the first quarter. The issuance scale of special bonds for project income in key short-board areas will be accelerated. It is expected that investment in rail transit, people’s livelihood and environmental protection will benefit significantly.

　　Local debt issuance has exceeded 1.45 trillion.

　　Wind data shows that as of April 10th, a total of 1,457.752 billion yuan of local government bonds were issued all over the country. From the perspective of monthly issuance, this year’s local debt issuance changed the record of zero issuance in January. From January to March, 418 billion yuan, 364.2 billion yuan and 624.5 billion yuan were issued respectively, which was significantly higher than the average monthly issuance scale last year.

　　"Since the beginning of this year, the characteristics of local debt issuance are mainly reflected in four aspects: large scale of issuance, obvious advance of issuance rhythm, regional concentration of local debt issuance and high proportion of special bonds." Bian Huan, an analyst at China Chengxin International, told the Economic Information Daily that, specifically, the scale of local debt issuance has greatly increased. According to the arrangement of the government work report, this year’s new special debt limit is 2.15 trillion yuan, an increase of 800 billion yuan compared with last year, and the new general debt limit is 930 billion yuan. This year’s new local government debt limit totals 3.08 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.9 trillion yuan compared with last year’s limit. Local bonds issued in the first quarter exceeded 1.4 trillion yuan, far exceeding the issuance scale in the same period last year.

　　The release rhythm is obviously ahead of schedule. Bian Huan pointed out that the National People’s Congress authorized the State Council to issue 1.39 trillion yuan of new local government debt limit ahead of schedule, including 580 billion yuan of new general bonds and 810 billion yuan of new special bonds. This move greatly advanced the overall issuance pace of local bonds, and issued 1.18 trillion yuan of new local bonds in the first quarter, completing 85.2% of the early issuance limit; Among them, the issuance of new general bonds was 518.7 billion yuan, 89.4% of which was completed; The issuance of new special bonds was 666 billion yuan, 82.2% of which was completed.

　　The distribution area is relatively concentrated. Local debt issuance is concentrated in Jiangsu, Hubei, Shandong, Guangdong and other places. The circulation in these areas in the first quarter is higher than 90 billion yuan, while Qinghai, Shanxi, Ningxia and Hainan are all less than 20 billion yuan.

　　It is worth noting that from the perspective of issuance in the first quarter, the proportion of special bonds has accelerated. Bian Huan pointed out that at the end of the first quarter, the proportion of special bonds had exceeded 50%, among which the proportion of new special bonds in local bonds increased from 34% in January to 57% in March, while the proportion of project income special bonds with self-balanced income exceeded 80%, which was close to 100% in March.

　　Tang Linmin, a researcher at China International Futures Co., Ltd., told the Economic Information Daily that local bonds issued in the first quarter exceeded 1.4 trillion yuan, and most of the 1.39 trillion new local bonds issued in advance have been issued, which better reflects the significance of issuing some new local bonds in advance in strengthening economic countercyclical adjustment, improving the pace of local bond issuance, alleviating the pressure of local bond issuance, and reducing the impact of local bond issuance on funds.

　　Sales in the bank counter market are booming

　　It is worth noting that the local debt issuance channels have also ushered in expansion. On March 16th, the Ministry of Finance issued a notice that general bonds and special bonds publicly issued by local governments can be issued in the local area through the counter market of commercial banks.

　　This means that the local debt market is fully open to individuals and small and medium investors for the first time. Insiders said that the expansion of distribution channels will undoubtedly help local bonds to be issued more smoothly and provide investors with more investment options.

　　As the first batch of pilot areas, Zhejiang, Ningbo, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shandong and Beijing have officially launched the issuance of local bonds in the counter market of commercial banks. Judging from the sales situation in the six places, local bonds have been sought after by individual investors. Take ICBC as an example. As of April 1st, ICBC had sold out all the sales shares of the first batch of counter local government bonds in six provinces and cities ahead of schedule, totaling 1.77 billion yuan. The Zhejiang government bonds sold by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank completed the investor subscription transaction of 160,000 denominations in the first second of the market opening on March 25th, and by 11: 30am that day, all the 100 million quotas were sold out.

　　"The opening of local debt counter business provides more investment options for individual investors and increases the diversification and security of asset allocation, so individual investors are still relatively willing to invest in local debt." Zhang Yijun, technical director of Oriental Jincheng Research and Development Department, said.

　　He believes that in terms of security, the current credit ratings of local government bonds are all AAA, with the government’s credit endorsement, and the credit risk is very low. In terms of liquidity, investors can buy and sell bonds at any time during the trading period according to their personal capital needs, and the trading funds will be liquidated in real time. In terms of yield, local government bonds are tens of basis points higher than national debt on average. Compared with certificates of deposit and bank wealth management products, the starting point of local debt investment transactions is low.

　　Wang Yuanhui, an analyst at China Chengxin International, told reporters that at present, the first batch of pilots issued a total of 6.8 billion yuan of local bonds at bank counters, and the sales were hot. It is expected that the investors of local bonds will be more diversified in the future, and further promotion of counter sales will be more conducive to improving the liquidity of local bonds.

　　The issue fever will continue in the second quarter.

　　The the State Council executive meeting held on January 9th this year arranged to speed up the issuance of local government special bonds, and strive to basically complete the issuance before the end of September. Experts in the industry pointed out that the target of issuing special bonds for the whole year may be accelerated to the third quarter. At present, a total of 717.1 billion special bonds were issued in the first quarter, accounting for 30.98% of the annual quota.

　　Looking forward to the local debt issuance in the second quarter, Bian Huan believes that in terms of the issuance scale, since most of the quotas have been issued in advance in the first quarter, and only 55% of the new quotas are left in the whole year, the local debt issuance will tend to be flat. However, considering the plan of basically issuing special bonds before the end of September, the issuance speed of special bonds will be significantly higher than that of general bonds. At present, there is still 70% room for the use of special bonds, while the general debt limit has been used 55.77%. Therefore, in the second quarter,

　　Judging from the distribution of project income bonds, Bian Huan pointed out that in the first quarter, the income bonds of soil storage projects accounted for 42.09%, while other varieties, such as rural revitalization and poverty alleviation, municipal urban and rural development infrastructure, environmental protection, community construction, people’s livelihood security and other short-board areas, accounted for only 11.64%. In the future, under the policy background of continuing to play the role of special bonds to make up for short-boards, the issuance scale of special bonds for project income in key short-board areas will be accelerated.

　　Tang Linmin said that in general, the issuance of local bonds in the first quarter was smooth and orderly, basically achieving the goal of issuing some new local bonds in advance, and laying a good foundation for realizing the requirement of completing all 3.08 trillion yuan of new local bonds issuance before the end of September. Looking forward to the second quarter and beyond, the pace of local debt issuance may be slightly slower than that in the first quarter, but the pace has not changed much, especially for new bonds. "Because according to the requirements of the issuance before the end of September and the part that has been issued in the first quarter, the total amount to be issued in the remaining two or three quarters in six months is about 1,828 billion yuan, and the monthly circulation needs to be more than 300 billion yuan."