In Depth: Why China’s Efforts to Resolve Hidden Government Debt Could Fall Short

China’s central government has rolled out a new round of measures since the second half of last year to help local governments swap or restructure their off-the-books borrowing in a bid to control debt risk.

However, the sheer scale of the country’s local government hidden debt — up to more than 70 trillion yuan ($9.8 trillion) according to some estimates, more than twice Germany’s GDP — means that the measures at best are far inadequate and will provide only temporary relief to what experts say is a looming liquidity crisis for regional authorities.