China pledges stronger fiscal policies for high-quality development

BEIJING - China will continue to improve its proactive fiscal policies, boost consumption and investment, and help businesses further to support high-quality development this year, officials from the Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday.

In 2022, transfer payments from the central government to local governments hit 9.71 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion), up 17.1 percent year-on-year, providing stronger support for social security projects at the grassroots level, Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun said at a press conference.

The ministry will fully implement the strategy of expanding domestic demand, and spur consumption to promote the recovery and upgrading of the consumer market, said Xu Hongcai, vice minister of finance.

Special local government bonds are important to expanding effective investment and stabilizing the economy, he said, pledging the appropriate size of special bonds to maintain stable government investment this year.

China's combination of tax refunds, as well as tax and fee cuts and deferrals, hit 4.2 trillion yuan in 2022, reducing the tax revenue share in GDP from 17 percent in 2018 to 13.8 percent in 2022.

Such tax support policies will continue to help enterprises tide over difficulties and stabilize the economy this year, said Zhu Zhongming, vice-minister of finance.