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)