Municipal debt in China doubles in two years.

Local-government loans in China almost doubled to 19.9T yuan ($3.28T) in 2010-2012, a state think tank estimates. Total central and local government debt was almost 28T yuan at the end of 2012, representing 53% of GDP. In an effort to rein in the ballooning debt, China's central bank refrained from injecting liquidity into the money markets earlier this month, which is what has helped cause the latest spike in short-term interest rate.