China's fiscal revenue rises 25.7% in first 7 months
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China's fiscal revenue jumped 25.7 percent from a year earlier to 5.11 trillion yuan (about 750 billion U.S. dollars) in the first seven months, the Ministry of Finance announced Wednesday.
In July alone, the fiscal revenue reached 778.32 billion yuan (114.85 billion U.S. dollars), up 16.2 percent year on year, the ministry said in a statement on its website.
The monthly growth rate in July rebounded from 14.7 percent in June, but was still slower than May's 20.5 percent.
Of the total, the January-July central fiscal revenue stood at 2.7 trillion yuan, while local governments collected about 2.42 trillion yuan, both up 25.7 percent year on year, according to the statement.
The ministry attributed July's slower growth to a relatively high comparison base over the same period last year, when China's economy began recovering from the global economic downturn.
The MOF estimates that the country's fiscal revenue growth will continue to slow in the coming months due to a higher comparison base last year and a slowing economy.
Meanwhile, national fiscal spending rose 16.6 percent year on year to about 581.1 billion yuan (85.75 billion U.S. dollars) in July, up 16.6 percent year on year.
The July spending took nationwide expenditure in the first seven months to 3.96 trillion yuan (584.64 billion U.S. dollars), up 16.9 percent from a year ago.
Expenditure on education continued to top China's fiscal spending with a total of 561.64 billion yuan (82.88 billion U.S. dollars) being allocated in the January-July period, or a year-on-year increase of 17.5 percent.
Central government revenue exceeded expenditure in the first seven months, resulting in a fiscal surplus of 1.51 trillion yuan (169.85 billion U.S. dollars) in this period.
China budgeted 1.05 trillion yuan (154.4 billion U.S. dollars) of fiscal deficit this year to support economic growth. The Chinese central government has pledged that it would continue to implement a "proactive" fiscal policy this year.
China's fiscal deficit hit 950 billion yuan last year, a record high in six years, but still less than 3 percent of gross domestic product.
