China intensifies punishment for credit defaulters

BEIJING -- China Friday announced plans to increase sanctions for credit defaulters.

Defaulters will be restricted from real estate transactions, as well as taking planes and trains, according to plans posted on the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) website.

Under the plans jointly issued by the NDRC, Supreme People's Court and other government departments, individual defaulters as well as legal representatives and chief executives of companies that default, will be prevented from participating in judicial sales of real estate or obtaining land from the government.

Starting in May, defaulters, including people responsible for fiscal fund embezzlement and taxation illegal practices as well as those default loans of international financial institutions, will be placed on a blacklist that stops them taking planes and buying train tickets with great comfort for one year, according to the plans.

This came amid the country's efforts to build a social credit system. An open national credit information online platform is already in place where honest people and enterprises are honored while poor credit performers like defaulting debtors and taxpayers are blacklisted.

According to the plans released Friday, the blacklist will also include trouble-makers, including those smoking on airplanes and convicted of spreading false rumors of terrorist threats, who will be banned from taking planes for one year.

People that endanger railway transport safety and evade train fare, as well as producers and sellers of fake train tickets will be restrained from purchasing train tickets for 90 days or 180 days.