wuhan wuhan a city in central china publicly named hundreds of debtors in a local newspaper article demanding payment a rare move underscoring the fiscal problems facing provincial governmentsthe citys local finance bureau printed a list of 259 entities with outstanding payments dating back to december 2018 in the yangtze river daily the official mouthpiece of the wuhan government on friday the debts listed totaled more than 300 million yuan 424 million while the wuhan municipal governments revenue hit 5077 billion yuan in the first quarter of the year that marked a 85 decline on the same period last year the wuhan municipal bureau of finance said in the pagelong article that attempts to collect the money by writing to debtors had failed and urged those named to immediately perform the relevant statutory debt repayment obligationsthe biggest debtor to the wuhan finance bureau was a car manufacturer that owed the government 235 million yuan a number of district financial bureaus were also on the list several stateaffiliated publications including the securities times reported on the wuhan governments public notice over the weekend and reprinted the list the page in question wasnt available on yangtze river dailys official websitechina is facing a local government debt problem that threatens to drag on the worlds secondlargest economy for years to come goldman sachs group inc estimates chinas total government debt is about 23 trillion a figure that includes the hidden borrowing of thousands of financing companies set up by provinces and citiesthe majority of chinas 31 provincial authorities have already exceeded a threshold set by beijing to signify disproportionately high debt risks while its unlikely any of the regional governments will default the high debt levels may force some to scale back spending