China's June fiscal revenues up 20 percent

BEIJING, July 13 (UPI) -- China's fiscal revenues in June jumped 19.6 percent to $100.5 billion from the same month of last year, the Finance Ministry said.

The June growth far exceeded that of May, when revenues rose 4.8 percent from the same month of last year to $96.05 billion.

The ministry said revenues for the first six months of the year, however, fell 2.4 percent to 3.398 trillion yuan ($497.32 billion), China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

China's expenditures in the first six months of this year rose 26.3 percent to 2.89 trillion yuan ($422.97 billion) from the same period of last year, yielding a six-month surplus of $74.35 billion.

The May and June growth pointed to a recovery, as revenues in the first four months had dropped 9.9 percent from the same period of last year due to shrinking business profits arising from the global economic slowdown. The growth was attributed to active fiscal policies including tax cuts, officials said.

The ministry was quoted as saying the growth also resulted from the stabilization of overall economic performance, growing business profits and the increase in the cigarette tax.