BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The debt-to-asset ratio at China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) headed downward for the third consecutive year in 2019, official data showed Wednesday.
At the end of last year, the average debt-to-asset ratio of central SOEs stood at 65.1 percent, down 0.6 percentage points from the beginning of 2019, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) told a press conference.
The ratios of state firms in the sectors such as metallurgy, power, mining and construction fell by more than one percentage point from the beginning of 2019.
"The overall solvency of central SOEs was stable as their average ratio of interest-bearing liability to assets dropped by 1.1 percentage points year on year to 38.2 percent," said SASAC spokesperson Peng Huagang.
China has set a timetable for SOE deleveraging as part of its efforts to defuse financial risks.
The average debt-to-asset ratio of SOEs should be reduced by two percentage points by the end of 2020, as compared with that at the end of 2017, according to guidelines released in September 2018.
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