BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- China's local governments issued around 560 billion yuan (about 78.93 billion U.S. dollars) in new bonds in February, data from the Ministry of Finance showed on Thursday.

Of the total, special bond issuance came in at 444.4 billion yuan in the period, while the issuance of general bonds amounted to nearly 115.6 billion yuan.

During the January-February period, local government bond issuance reached 944.4 billion yuan. These bonds had an average issuance term of 12.6 years and an average interest rate of 2.58 percent.

At the end of last month, China's outstanding local government debts amounted to around 41.41 trillion yuan, the ministry said.

Source: Xinhua