China News Service, Beijing, February 28 (Reporter Zhao Jianhua) The Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences recently released the "2023 Local Financial and Economic Operation Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the report) in Beijing.

According to the report, China's fiscal revenue has shown structural changes, with expenditure growth faster than revenue growth, and the annual balance between general public budget revenue and expenditure showing an expanding trend.

As the economy picks up, fiscal revenue will continue to maintain a restorative growth trend.

　　According to data released by the Ministry of Finance, in 2023, the country's general public budget revenue will increase by 6.4% year-on-year, of which tax revenue will increase by 8.7% year-on-year.

In the same year, the national government fund budget revenue fell by 9.2% year-on-year, of which revenue from the transfer of local state-owned land use rights fell by 13.2% year-on-year.

The report said that looking at different tax types, value-added tax revenue experienced high growth, while other tax types experienced negative growth.

Government fund budget revenue and state-owned land transfer revenue continued to show negative growth but showed signs of marginal improvement.

　　In 2023, the national general public budget expenditure will increase by 5.4% year-on-year.

According to the report, in the past two years, the average growth rate of fiscal expenditures has been 5.7%, and the gap between general public budget revenue and expenditure has shown an increasing trend.

　　In 2023, China’s proactive fiscal policy will intensify and improve efficiency.

During this period, 680 billion yuan (RMB, the same below) of investment within the central budget was optimized and combined, the general public budget arranged a deficit of 3.880 billion yuan, and the budget was later adjusted to increase by 1 trillion yuan; the new special bond limit for local finance was 3.8 trillion yuan.

Coupled with the active use of policy development financial tools, structural monetary policy tools and other policy tools, the report believes that this fully demonstrates the expansionary effect of fiscal policy.

　　In recent years, transfer payments have continued to increase, and new financial resources from the central government have been transferred to local governments for use.

The report believes that in order to alleviate financial pressure at the grassroots level, support local "three guarantees" (guaranteing basic people's livelihood, ensuring wages, and ensuring operation) and developing the economy, the scale of transfer payments has increased unprecedentedly, and a large-scale downward transfer of financial resources is a necessary move.

This also means that localities become the main body of resource allocation.

In 2023, local general public budget expenditures accounted for 86.08% of the country's total general public budget expenditures, while central-level expenditures accounted for only 13.92%.

　　This year, China’s proactive fiscal policy will be appropriately intensified to improve quality and efficiency.

The report believes that China's economic recovery will lay the foundation for improvement in 2023, the effects of various policies will be reflected in 2024, and fiscal revenue will continue to grow restoratively.

However, the impact of pressures such as insufficient confidence and unstable expectations still exists, and unfavorable factors such as external economic recession and geopolitical conflicts still pose uncertainty to fiscal and economic operations.

　　The report recommends optimizing the debt structure between the central and local governments, appropriately increasing the proportion of central debt, and improving the level and effectiveness of the final allocation of financial resources to better comply with the development trend of increasingly frequent cross-regional flows of production factors such as population and resources.

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