預算聯網監督(yùsuàn liánwǎng jiāndǔ): Budget supervision by people's congress

Vice-Minister of Finance Liu Wei said at a local budget work meeting in Guangdong province on Tuesday that local authorities should strictly implement a budget supervision mechanism aimed at strengthening the examination and supervision of local governments' budgets and fiscal expenditure by local people's congresses, or local legislatures.

The system requires local governments to upload their budget information and fiscal expenditure to a database accessible only to their local people's congresses, so the congresses can review the governments' budget information and supervise their fiscal spending through the network.

By the end of May, the people's congresses of all the 21 prefecture-level and above cities and 94 percent of the county-level regions in Guangdong province had access to the budget information of corresponding cities and regions.

Sichuan and Liaoning provinces and Tianjin have also implemented a people's congress budget supervision system.

On June 30, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress issued a document promoting budget supervision by all prefecture-level people's congresses. The innovation of budget supervision through modern technology is expected to help strengthen the supervision of government spending and promote the modernization of governance.