China's fiscal revenue amounted to 3.93 trillion yuan (US$518 billion) last year, a growth of 24.4 percent on the previous year, Finance Minister Jin Renqing announced Wednesday.

After deducting tax rebates, the revenue was revised to 3.88 trillion yuan, up 22.5 percent.

The figure accounted for 109.4 percent of the annual budget. Fiscal expenditure increased by 19.1 percent to 4.04 trillion yuan, or 105.3 percent of the budgeted figure, said Jin.

Last year, 2.12 trillion yuan in revenue flowed into the central coffers, up 1.2 billion yuan, while 2.34 trillion yuan in expenditure went out, up 1.1 billion yuan. The deficit stood at 274.9 billion yuan, 20.1 billion yuan less than the budgeted figure.

Jin said this fall the government would launch a new financial support system for students from low-income families, earmarking 15.4 billion yuan for the purpose this year.

After the system was well established, 50 billion yuan in financial support would be available annually for about 20 million students.

Last year the Ministry of Finance set aside 339.7 billion yuan in financial support for rural areas, farmers and agricultural projects, up 42.2 billion yuan, or 14.2 percent, over the 2005 level, said Jin.