China is kicking off a $138 billion bond sale to help boost its flagging economy

• China is about to start selling $138 billion in long-dated sovereign bonds, the finance ministry said.
• Beijing is raising the debt in a bid to reignite the country's faltering economy.

China will start selling bonds this week in a bid to boost its faltering economy.

The finance ministry said it will issue 30-year sovereign bonds worth 40 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) on Friday in the first of several sales aimed at raising 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) overall.

Beijing revealed its plans to start selling ultra-long sovereign bonds in March. Premier Li Qiang said at the time that the funds would be used to fund "major national strategies and building up security capacity in key areas."

Both Bloomberg and The Financial Times reported the bond sales ahead of Monday's announcement, citing unnamed sources.

It's the first time since 2020 and only the fourth time in the past 26 years that China's government has raised debt by selling long-dated bonds.

It's trying to reignite an economy that's stumbled since the pandemic, with policymakers grappling with deflation and stagnant growth.

The world's second-largest economy has also been plagued by an ongoing property-market crisis, which has triggered the collapse of large developers, including Evergrande and Country Garden.

When Li announced the long-duration bond sale in March, he warned that China's economy faced significant risks but still set a growth target of 5%. That figure was higher than many forecasters had expected.

"The foundation for the continuous recovery and improvement of our country's economy is still not solid, with insufficient demand, overcapacity in some industries, weak societal expectations, and many lingering risks," said Li, who is second only to Xi Jinping in the Chinese government.