China to implement comprehensive budget performance evaluation

BEIJING -- China aims to build an all-round budget performance evaluation system in three to five years, according to a regulation released Tuesday.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued a regulation about the decision to introduce the system, marking a key step to expanding the country's fiscal and taxation reform, and upgrading governance and budget management.

Under the regulation, the budget performance evaluation will be more "comprehensive," covering revenue and expenditure of governments at all levels.

"The evaluation targets not only the performance of expenditure, but also the performance of revenue and fiscal policies," said Wang Zecai, a researcher at Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences.

The evaluation aims to cover the entire process, from establishing a performance evaluation mechanism to strengthening performance appraisal monitoring.

The regulation also underlines the application of the evaluation results. A third-party institute could be introduced to help with the performance assessment independently when necessary. The audit and evaluation results will be a major indicator for budget planning.

The evaluation will apply to budgets for general public finance, government managed funds, state capital operations and social insurance funds.

The regulation also highlights the duty of local governments. Heads in charge of key projects will take lifelong responsibility for budget performance.