China's tax revenue went up 30.8 percent to 3.72 trillion yuan (US$495.5 billion) in the first three quarters, the highest growth rate for the same period registered since 1994, the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) said on Friday.

The aggregate tax revenue in the first nine months this year approached the total generated in 2006, said Shu Qiming, director of the statistics department under SAT. China's tax revenue for the whole of 2006 stood at 3.76 trillion yuan.

China's tax revenue increment, mainly composed of the value-added tax from the industrial and commercial sectors, is in line with the fast-growing national economy, said Shu.

From January to September, industrial value-added tax revenue went up 20.5 percent and corporate income tax revenue surged 35.8 percent.

According to the SAT report, stamp tax from securities trading skyrocketed to 143.6 billion yuan in the first nine months, up 11.7 times over the same period last year.

The Chinese government tripled the stamp tax on securities trading from 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent starting May 30, amid efforts to "promote the healthy development of the securities markets".

Tax revenue from urban land use rose 70.2 percent year on year in the first nine months, and revenue from sales tax of the sizzling real estate sector and the land value-added tax was up by 42.9 percent and 82.8 percent respectively.

In the first nine months, the resource tax revenue went up by 29.1 percent year-on-year to 19.8 billion yuan. Export tax rebate increased by 81.4 billion yuan, or 25.6 percent, to 400 billion yuan.