Some Chinese provinces received their allocations for local government borrowing in 2022, earlier than the timetable for this year, but several jurisdictions said their quotas for new special purpose bonds (SPBs) were smaller than expected.

The early release of borrowing authorizations from the central government can help local authorities speed up infrastructure spending as the world’s second-largest economy faces slower growth going into 2022 because of a real estate slump and pandemic curbs that slowed consumption.