BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhuanet) -- China's fiscal revenues grew by 14.6 percent year-on-year during the first half of this year to 1.639 trillion yuan (about 202.3 billion US dollars), the Ministry of Finance said Sunday.

    Budget spending at central and local levels totaled 1.242 trillion yuan (153.3 billion US dollars) during the January-June period, up 15 percent, the ministry said.

    Central fiscal spending was up 1.5 percent, but central fiscal revenues rose 10.1 percent, while fiscal spending by local governments jumped by 20.9 percent and local fiscal revenues grew by 21 percent.

    An official with the ministry blamed low central fiscal revenuesto increased spending by the central governments on export tax rebates.

    The central government paid 150.3 billion yuan (18.5 billion USdollars) in export tax rebates during the first six months of thisyear, or 104.4 billion yuan (12.7 billion US dollars) more than the same period of last year.

    The national fiscal revenues would have jumped by 21.9 percent if the central government had not paid the increased sum of exporttax rebates, and the central fiscal revenues would have been increased by 19.4 percent, the official said.

    The official said key budget spending policies have been implemented at planned paces,including allocation of budget subsidies for grain production.

    The central government, through provincial governments, delivered 9.53 billion yuan (1.17 billion US dollars) in direct grain production subsidies to farmers across the country during the first half of the year,77 percent of the 13.2 billion yuan (1.62 billion US dollars) planned for the whole year.

    China began to offer subsidies directly to grain growers since last year in a bid to encourage farmers to grow more grain for domestic consumption. Enditem