Premier Wen vows transparency in govt budgets
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E-mail China Daily, September 19, 2010
The Chinese government will ensure more transparent official budgets from this year, said Premier Wen Jiabao in a speech made public Sunday.
According to the document released by the State Council, Wen made the speech on August 27 at a meeting on lawful administration.
"This year we will work to improve the transparency of government budgets. Governments should be required to include all their revenue and spending in the budget report," said the document.
All governments in China are required by law to submit their budget reports to the appropriate people's congress for review and approval.
China's lawmakers are considering amending the Budget Law, but the amendment draft has not been reviewed yet.
In March, Gao Qiang, vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Financial and Economic Affairs Committee and director of the NPC Standing Committee's Budgetary Affairs Commission, told Xinhua the draft amendment would ensure that "budgets are more complete" and clearly state that "all the government's revenue and expenditures should be included in budget."
It had been common for local governments to record much more revenue than budgeted, and the surplus was not supervised by people's congresses, said Gao.
