BEIJING — China's local government bond issuance reached 55.7 billion yuan (about $8.48 billion) in February, data from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) shows.

In breakdown, the issuance of general bonds totaled 29.5 billion yuan last month, while that of special bonds amounted to 26.2 billion yuan, the MOF said on March 31.

Local government bonds were issued with an average maturity period of 8.9 years and an average interest rate of 3.45 percent in February.

In the first two months, the issuance of local government bonds amounted to 418.1 billion yuan, the data shows.

The MOF data also shows that China's outstanding local government debt stood at 26.02 trillion yuan by the end of February.