BEIJING — China's outstanding local government debt amounted to 23.04 trillion yuan (about $3.26 trillion) by the end of last month, the Ministry of Finance said on May 11.

The figure was up from 22.82 trillion yuan by the end of March, according to a statement on the ministry's website.

Local governments issued 286.8 billion yuan worth of bonds last month, down from the 387.5 billion yuan issued in March.

China has accelerated the local government bond issuance this year to help the timely implementation of various projects to mitigate the impacts of the novel coronavirus epidemic.

During the first four months of the year, the local government bond issuance totaled nearly 1.9 trillion yuan.