The Higher People's Court in East China's Zhejiang Province reported Tuesday a surge in enterprise bankruptcy cases in 2012.

The number of cases filed with the court rose by 85.7 percent year-on-year to 143, the court said in an announcement on its website.

The assets and liabilities of the bankrupt enterprises totaled over 12 billion yuan ($1.95 billion) and 24.3 billion yuan, respectively, with about 11,000 staff involved.

The court said at a press conference Monday that financial institutions were heavily affected, as the bankrupt enterprises defaulted on loans from 12 major banks in Zhejiang. The loans had a total value of over 7.3 billion yuan, the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

Some enterprises also suffered because they provided guarantees to some of the companies that went bankrupt.

Zhang Hengzhu, one of chief judges of the court, said in that 94 of the 143 cases accepted last year led directly to bankruptcy liquidation procedures.

Some highly polluting and energy-consuming companies were among those that went bankrupt, he said.

Global Times