Chinese courts accept more corporate bankruptcy cases in 2017

BEIJING - Chinese courts received 9,542 new cases concerning corporate bankruptcy in 2017, an increase of 68.4 percent compared with the previous year, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Tuesday.

During the same period, 6,257 corporate bankruptcy cases were concluded by the courts, up 73.7 percent year on year, the SPC said.

The SPC has required courts nationwide to accept any bankruptcy petition and issue written confirmation in an effort to facilitate market-orientated bankruptcy and boost high-quality economic growth, it said.

Bankruptcy reorganization has helped companies that were facing bankruptcy but still had value and hoped to reemerge, while bankruptcy liquidation helped weed out "zombie enterprises," or unprofitable firms burdened with debt, mismanagement or overcapacity, said Liu Guixiang with the SPC.

By the end of 2017, 97 courts had established liquidation and bankruptcy tribunals to facilitate the trial and settlement of bankruptcy cases. In early 2015, only five courts in China had such tribunals.