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BEIJING, Feb. 7-- China will continue with the deleveraging of enterprises by promoting market-based debt-to-equity swaps to rein in debt risks, according to a decision at a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday. The deleveraging of State-owned enterprises will be the high priority, supported with further measures like the SOE reform, cutting excess capacity and lowering cost, according to the decision. The channels for private capital to be turned into equity investment will be expanded, and equity investment institutions will be encouraged to take part in the market-driven debt-for-equity programs. "The debt-to-equity swap deserves much credit for reversing the fast rise of debt and bringing about a decline in the overall leverage ratio. It has been a market-driven, rules-based process, which has worked well so far," Li said. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that by the end of 2017, the debt-to-asset ratio of industrial enterprises with annual business revenues at or above 20 million yuan has dropped 0.6 percentage point year on year to 55.5 percent. The figure for State-controlled enterprises for the same period was down by 0.9 percentage point to 60.4 percent. The National Development and Reform Commission announced last August that the agencies enforcing debt-to-equity swaps have reached agreements according to market principles with 70-plus highly leveraged companies in the steel, coal, chemical and equipment manufacturing industries, with a total contractual value of more than 1 trillion yuan. | 
