Insights on Debt Sustainability and Management from China’s Structural Transformation Experience

China has engaged in rapid transformation lifting millions out of poverty and has become an economic superpower, all the while avoiding unsustainable sovereign debt. From the perspective of debt, China’s exceptionalism emerges in several ways: the classification of nonfinancial corporate debt, the growth of productive investment relative to corporate debt, and the ownership of debt. This chapter highlights some of the unique features of China’s approach to debt during the last four decades and derives lessons for other developing countries.

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