BEIJING, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- China's 2008 fiscal revenue is
expected to exceed 6 trillion yuan (about 857 billion U.S. dollars), Finance
Minister Xie Xuren told a national conference Monday.
This represented a year-on-year increase of 19
percent, comparing with a 32.4 percent growth in 2007.
The country's fiscal revenue increase started to
decline in the second half of 2008 because of economic slowdown, corporate
profits decline and tax cuts to boost growth amid the global financial crisis,
Xie said.
He expected the downward trend to continue in 2009,
which wouldmake it "a difficult fiscal year" marked by falling revenue growthand
surging expenditure.
The central government has decided to carry out an
active fiscal policy and a moderately easy monetary policy in 2009. It has
unveiled a four trillion-yuan economic stimulus package to boost growth through
enhancing domestic demand.
The country's fiscal revenue rose 20.5 percent
year-on-year to 5.8 trillion yuan in the first 11 months last year. The
expenditure also increased in the first 11 months, up 23.6 percentto nearly 4.6
trillion yuan.
Fiscal revenue dropped 3.1 percent in November from a
year earlier.
In October, the country reported 532.9 billion yuan
in fiscal revenue, down 0.3 percent year-on-year, the first decline in 12 years.
According to Xie, reform and development in rural
areas would be one of the government's major tasks in 2009. Financial support
will be reinforced for farmers, agricultural production and rural areas this
year.
The central budget has channeled 102.77 billion yuan
in subsidies for farmers in 2008, more than doubled from a year earlier.
The government will continue to optimize the
structure of fiscal expenditure this year, spending more money to improve
people's quality of life, Xie said.
The country's fiscal expenditure on education is
expected to reach 158.2 billion yuan in 2008, up 47 percent from 2007, while
that on medical and health care will increase 25.5 percent year-on-year to 83.36
billion yuan. A forecast 276.16 billion yuanis spent to improve social welfare
and employment last year, increasing nearly 20 percent.
The government would also spend more money to help boost employment this year, he said.
BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's foreign trade probably
reached 2.55 trillion U.S. dollars last year, up 18 percent from 2007, according
to an analysis released on Sunday by the General Administration of Customs.
The trade surplus was about 290 billion U.S. dollars,
it said. Full story
BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- China's futures trading volume
reached a record high of 71.9 trillion yuan (10.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in
2008, up 76 percent year-on-year, the China Futures Association (CFA) said on
Saturday.
It said 1.36 billion contracts were traded, up 87
percent. Full story
BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Purchasing Managers'
Index (PMI) of China's manufacturing sector climbed 2.4 percentage points
month-on-month to 41.2 percent in December, China Federation of Logistics and
Purchasing (CFLP) told Xinhua Sunday.
The index has been lower than 50 percent for three
consecutive months. It was also the fifth time the index remained below 50
percent within last year after it fell to a record low of 38.8 percent in
November. Full story
China digital publishing revenue to
reach 53 bln yuan in 2008 BEIJING, Dec.
20 (Xinhua) -- Revenue from the digital publishing industry was expected to
reach 53 billion yuan (7.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008, said a senior official
with China's press and publications administration on Saturday.
Sun Shoushan, vice director of the General
Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), said the digital publishing
industry included the digitalization of traditional publishing products, such as
newspapers, books and cell phone text messages, and new digital media. Full story
BEIJING, Dec. 2 --
China's top think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS), says that
the countr's economy is expected to slow down to 9.8% in 2008 and further
decline to 9.3% in 2009.
In its annual Blue Paper on China's economy, which
was released on Tuesday, CASS noted the Chinese economic downturn is mostly
attributed to the global financial crisis. Full story
BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's gross domestic
product (GDP) growth is expected to slow to 9.4 percent in 2008 from last year's
11.4 percent as the shrinking exports will cool the world's fourth largest
economy, according to a Chinese credit rating agency report on Sunday.
The fundamentals of the economy are sound, but
falling export orders would take a toll on the national economy in the short
term, and domestic consumption needed time to play a bigger role, said the
report released by the China Chengxin International Credit Rating Co. (CCXI), a
joint venture of China's first rating agency China Chengxin Credit Management
Co. Ltd. and U.S.-based Moody's Corporation. Full story
