Chinese household debt hits record high, study shows

China’s household debt reached a record high last year, adding to worries the burden of debt services could weigh on long-term consumer spending and drag on growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

The country’s ratio of household debt to gross domestic product hit an all-time high of 49.1 per cent in 2017, marking an increase of nearly 20 per percentage points over the past five years, German insurer Allianz said in its latest global wealth report.

“This amounts to an increase of 30 percentage points in just 10 years — no other country saw its private debt burden rising so fast,” Allianz said, with the caveat that “China needed to catch up to some extent, as Chinese private households only obtained access to bank loans in 2003”.