China fiscal revenues rise 11.9% in Sept

BEIJING -- China's fiscal revenues grew 11.9 percent year-on-year to 825.8 billion yuan ($131.08 billion) in September, the Ministry of Finance said Thursday.

The country's central fiscal revenues dropped 2.4 percent year-on-year to 366.4 billion yuan last month, while that of local governments was up 26.8 percent to 459.4 billion yuan, according to a statement from the ministry.

During the first nine months, the country's fiscal revenues expanded by 10.9 percent from a year earlier to 9.06 trillion yuan, but the growth rate was down 18.6 percentage points compared with the same period last year, the statement said.

Professsor Qiao Baoyun from the Central University of Finance and Economics attributed the slower growth to China's easing economic expansion, as well as the country's self-initiated structural reforms.

China's economy has slowed for the seventh straight quarter, growing 7.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics announced Thursday.

In the first three quarters, tax revenues nationwide rose 8.6 percent year-on-year to 7.74 trillion yuan, the statement said.

Revenues from value-added taxes, which make up a major part of total tax revenues, gained 5.8 percent year-on-year to 1.93 trillion yuan.

The easing growth was affected by slowing industrial output and declining producer prices, as well as structural tax reductions, the statement said.

Business tax revenues saw an increase of 12.1 percent to 1.16 trillion yuan during the January-September period. Tax revenues in the property sector edged down 0.2 percent on the slowing growth of sales values, according to the statement.

Corporate income taxes rose 14.7 percent year-on-year to 1.7 trillion yuan, while individual income taxes shrank 8.4 percent to 457.4 billion yuan, the ministry said.

The country's fiscal expenditures totaled 8.41 trillion yuan in the first nine months, up 21.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the ministry.