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October fiscal revenue drops as slowdown bites

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-13 15:54

China's fiscal revenue fell 0.3 percent in October from a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday, a sharp decline from earlier in the year as a slowing economy weighs on the government's tax intake.

It was the first such decline in fiscal revenue for a non-holiday month since 1996, according to economists at investment bank China International Capital Corp.

The drop also marked an abrupt reversal from last year, when the government's earnings surged by 32.4 percent. As recently as July, fiscal revenues were up 16.5 percent on a year earlier.

A weakening economy and falling corporate profits, along with a series of tax cuts to cushion firms from the slowdown, were behind the drop, the ministry said on its website.

Still, fiscal revenue in the first 10 months rose 22.6 percent to 5.4276 trillion yuan ($795 billion), well above the 14 percent increase projected in the government's 2008 budget.

China's gross domestic product growth slowed to 9 percent in the third quarted from 10.1 percent in the second quarter.

Fiscal expenditures in the first 10 months were 4.0571 trillion yuan, an increase of 24.5 percent from the same period last year.