China's fiscal revenue, expenditures up in first 11 months

BEIJING - China's fiscal revenue and expenditures both registered steady growth in the first 11 months of this year on the back of strong economic growth.

Fiscal revenue rose 8.4 percent year-on-year to nearly 16.2 trillion yuan ($2.4 trillion) in the first 11 months, the Ministry of Finance said Monday in a report.

The growth is mainly helped by rising revenue from tax income, which expanded 11.2 percent to 13.6 trillion yuan.

Revenue from value-added taxes increased 7.5 percent year-on-year to 5.2 trillion yuan in the January-November period.

During the period, fiscal expenditures rose 7.8 percent to nearly 18 trillion yuan.

Social security and the employment sector spent nearly 2.3 trillion yuan, the most of all sectors, according to the report.

However, in November alone, fiscal revenue and expenditures declined 1.4 percent and 9.1 percent year-on-year to 1.1 trillion yuan and 1.7 trillion yuan, respectively, driven by a higher comparative base in the same period last year.

China promised a more proactive and effective fiscal policy in 2017, with the fiscal deficit set at 3 percent of GDP, or 2.4 trillion yuan, up 200 billion yuan from 2016.

The country's GDP expanded 6.8 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, down from the second quarter's 6.9 percent increase but above the government's targeted growth of around 6.5 percent for the year.