An increase of 126.5% in the first 9 months. The bad debt of banks in China amount to an estimated 43.2 billion euros.

Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The unpaid debt of credit cards in China has increased by 126.5%. According to the Central Bank of China, at the end of September, debts (with a six month delay in payments) was 7.43 billion Yuan (about 724 million Euros), warning that "bad debt should be carefully observed." Unpaid debt represents 3.4% of all the debt created by credit cards that have been popular in China since 2000.

At the end of September, in China there were 175 million credit cards. In the first nine months expenditure using cards increased by 39.7%, reaching to 1240 billion Yuan (about 121 billion Euros).

Chinese banks have a reputation of being very exposed to bad debt. At the end of June 2009 these debts amounted to 443.6 billion Yuan (about 43.2 billion Euros), with a continuous growth of loans to the economy triggered by the aid package launched by the government.

• china
• banks
• debt
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• cards
• loan
• government
• aid
• growth
• financial
• crisis