Shanghai announced it would issue China's first ever local government bonds on November 15 in a pilot program designed to help cash-strapped local governments to curb fast-spreading debt risks.

The Shanghai Government sold threeyear fixed-rate bonds worth 3.6 billion yuan ($566.92 million) and five-year fixedrate bonds worth 3.5 billion yuan ($551.18 million).

The Ministry of Finance announced in late October that the State Council allowed Shanghai and Shenzhen and the provinces of Zhejiang and Guangdong to issue bonds on a trial basis to explore ways to solve local governments' debt issues.

Local government debt totaled about 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.69 trillion) at the end of last year.