Payouts eat into land sale revenue for 2015

Most of China's land sale revenue last year went to compensation and related spending, leaving only a marginal sum to be used for other expenditures, according to the Finance Ministry.

A total of 2.68 trillion yuan ($414 billion), or 79.6 percent of last year's land sale fund spending, went to compensation and preliminary land development.

This left 688 billion yuan, or 20.4 percent of total expenditure, as disposable revenue for local governments to build urban infrastructure, social housing and rural development, according to an annual statement on China's land sales released on Tuesday.