China just saw a record bond sell-off. Now its main trading platform isn't publishing foreign debt trades, report says.

• China's main bond trading platform for foreign investors stopped publishing data on May 11, Bloomberg reports.
• The move follows a recent sell-off in the Chinese debt markets.

After record net sales of sovereign debt, China's primary bond trading platform for foreign investors hasn't published transaction data in a week, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Turmoil across Chinese markets has escalated due to COVID-19 lockdowns, and the lack of data reporting raises questions about China's transparency into its debt market.

The China Foreign Exchange Trade System last provided trade data by overseas traders on May 11, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Those figures are typically published within one day, the sources said, and they aren't certain as to what the pause is exactly related to.

Foreign investors sold a record $18 billion in Chinese debt in March, the Financial Times reported, as Chinese bonds have become less appealing for offshore investors as surging US bond yields offer more promising returns.

Meanwhile, BlackRock last week downgraded Chinese stocks to neutral, and the world's largest asset manager forecasted a "rapidly worsening" outlook for the country's economy. Risks are rising for China over its ties to Russia amid war in Ukraine, the firm said, and lockdowns threaten to slow growth.

Plus, the Chinese yuan doesn't look appealing to investors right now, thanks to the nation's stringent COVID-19 policies, a Morgan Stanley strategist previously told Insider.

"The zero-COVID strategy is obviously causing market concern," he said. "So I think that that's posing a bit of a short-term headwind for this sort of story about a rising renminbi."