Economy
China first-quarter fiscal revenue rises 33 pct
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-04-15 21:49
 |
Large Medium Small |
BEIJING - China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on Friday that the country's fiscal revenue surged 33.1 percent over the previous year to 2.61 trillion yuan ($401.54 billion) during the first quarter.
|
||||
In March, the nation's fiscal revenue jumped 26.7 percent from one year earlier to 763.14 billion yuan, down from the 41.5-percent growth in February and January' s 32.8-percent increase.
Of the March fiscal revenue, the central government collected 353.3 billion yuan and local governments gathered the rest, the statement said.
The ministry attributed the increased fiscal revenues to robust economic growth and price hikes.
China's economy grew 9.7 percent in the first quarter, outpacing expectations. Further, industrial value-added output increased 14.4 percent, retail sales of consumer goods rose 16.3 percent and fixed-asset investment climbed 25 percent during the same period, leading to rapid gains in value-added taxes and corporate income taxes.
Value-added tax revenues jumped 23.2 percent over the past year to 626.5 billion yuan in the first three months. Consumption taxes and corporate income taxes gained 21.5 percent and 37.9 percent, reaching 207.9 billion yuan and 343.3 billion yuan, the statement said.
Bai Jingming, vice finance minister, said that price hikes were a major reason behind the tax increase. Consumer prices in China climbed to a 32-month high of 5.4 percent in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday and inflation accelerated to 5 percent on a quarterly basis.
Also, high commodity prices pushed sales up and taxes jumped accordingly, Bai said.
China's record imports in the first quarter also helped boost tax income, he noted. The country saw the first quarterly trade deficit of $1.02 billion in six years during the first three months.