The population of Heilung-Jang shrank by 6.5 million people in 10 years. There are many, many coal towns and steel towns across the North East. The problem is that a lot of these impoverished places are also very heavily indebted as we saw in her gung. And someone has to deal with those debt problems which are holding the economy back.
Hegang, a remote coal town in northern China that faced a mountain of debt, was forced to undergo an unprecedented financial restructuring. And it’s not alone. A local debt problem in some of China’s cities threatens to be a drag on the world’s second-largest economy for years to come.
Bloomberg’s Colum Murphy and James Mayger join this episode from Beijing to talk about what’s happening in Hegang and other cities, and why China’s local debt challenges may be felt well beyond its borders.
Read more: China’s $23 Trillion Local Debt Mess Is About to Get Worse
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