Hebei has reported more than 100 billion yuan of fiscal revenue from January to May, an increase of 24% year-on-year, which is basically equivalent to that of 2005, according to the Hebe Provincial Department of Finance.

Local general budget revenue achieved 54.73 billion Yuan, accounting for 47.4% of the annual budget and increasing by 28.3% year-on-year.

Since fiscal revenue stopped dropping and began shooting upward last August, this upward trend has lasted a full ten months, throughout which fiscal revenue for the whole province and local budget revenue have enjoyed sustained growth.

The sustained upturn of the provincial economy has contributed to the rapid growth of provincial fiscal revenue. In the first four months, the industrial added value of the above provincial scale increased by 22.1% and rose 15 percentage points, leading to value added tax increases. Industrial enterprises reaped profits of 41.21 billion Yuan, increasing 1.1 times over, which promoted the rapid growth of business income taxes, amounting to 6.93 billion Yuan (40% of local) and 35.7% of increase. In addition, the urban fixed assets investment sustained its rapid growth (49.8% last year), increasing by 29.9%. The total retail sales of social consumer goods rose by 17.6% and total import and export value increased by 30%.

However, the provincial economy still suffers from an excessive reliance on investment and exports, while the internal incentive of economic growth is not sufficient. Thus, there is great pressure to sustain the recent rapid growth of fiscal revenue, according to officials at the Hebe Provincial Department of Finance.

By Guo Changdong and Wang Meng