China's fiscal revenue down in January-April

BEIJING -- China's fiscal revenue dropped 4.8 percent year-on-year in the first four months of this year, new data showed.

The country's fiscal revenue amounted to about 7.43 trillion yuan (about $1.1 trillion) during the period, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Excluding the impact of value-added tax (VAT) credit refunds, the fiscal revenue, however, grew 5 percent from a year earlier.

The central government and local governments collected 3.46 trillion yuan and 3.97 trillion yuan in fiscal revenue, down 5.7 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

Tax revenue came in at 6.23 trillion yuan in the January-April period, down 7.6 percent year-on-year.

Fiscal spending rose 5.9 percent year-on-year to 8.09 trillion yuan in the first four months.

China started to issue VAT credit refunds on a large scale in April. The total value of such refunds reached about 800 billion yuan last month.

In 2022, tax refunds and cuts are expected to be about 2.5 trillion yuan, of which VAT credit refunds will account for some 1.5 trillion yuan and will all go straight to enterprises, according to the country's government work report.