Since the convening of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1989, China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 9.3 per cent.

The country's fiscal revenue stood at 113.2 billion yuan (US$13.6 billion) in 1978. It reached 434.9 billion yuan (US$52.4 billion) in 1993.

In 1994, China reformed its old fiscal and tax systems. This laid a solid foundation for fiscal revenue growth.

The country's tax revenues grew by an average of 100 billion yuan (US$12 billion) per year since 1994.

Tax revenues reached 1,000 billion yuan (US$120 billion) in 1999 and hit 1,638.6 billion yuan (US$197.4 billion) in 2001.

With more money in hand, the government was able to work on solving many key problems during the country's reform and opening-up process.

Since 1998, the government began to implement a pro-active fiscal policy. It invested about 3,000 billion yuan (US$361.4 billion) through the issuance of treasury bonds in a number of vital projects including reinforcing the dykes and dams of big rivers and lakes, upgrading electric power networks in rural areas and building grain depots.

The pro-active fiscal policy has achieved remarkable success.

The long-term treasury bonds contributed 1.5 percentage points to GDP growth in 1998, 2 percentage points in 1999, 1.7 percentage points in 2000 and 1.8 percentage points in 2001.

By the end of 2001, the money collected through treasury-bond issuance helped build 19,000 kilometres of expressway, 7,053 kilometres of railway, and helped build or upgrade 37 airports.

(China Daily October 14, 2002)