China's Finance Minister Jin Renqing reported on Tuesday that the
country's fiscal revenue had risen by almost 20 percent in 2005 to
hit a record 3.16 trillion yuan (US$395 billion).
The figure was achieved by the implementation of a prudent
fiscal policy since 2005 which allowed for stable and rapid
economic growth and more forceful revenue collection by finance,
taxation and customs departments.
The 3,393 billion-yuan (US$424.1 billion) national fiscal
expenditure, up 19.1 percent on last? year was bigger than
revenue by 228 billion yuan (US$28.5 billion), Jin said when
delivering a report to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the
legislature.
The central treasury pocketed 1,726 billion yuan (US$215.75
billion), the two largest sources being value-added tax (VAT)
revenue of 793.1 billion yuan (US$99.1 billion) and consumer tax,
VAT and tariffs on imports totaling 527.7 billion yuan (US$65.9
billion).
Some 702.2 billion yuan (US$87.8 billion) of state bonds were
issued by the central treasury to claim 692.2 billion yuan (US$86.5
billion) in revenue for the state coffers, nearly 300 billion yuan
of which was used to offset the budget deficit, he said.
About 35.3 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) of the 163.7 billion
yuan (US$20.4 billion) spent by the central treasury was used for
tax rebates to local treasuries, general transfer payments,
transfer payments for minority-concentrated regions, educational
and scientific undertakings and the remainder went towards paying
money overdue to avert financial risks.
(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2006)