BEIJING: China’s central and local governments collected more than 2.57 trillion yuan over the first two months of this year, a 3.2 per cent increase on the amount collected in January and February 2014, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance here the other day.
Part of the increase was due to the fact that some of the government revenue that was previously separately calculated as income from government funds is now being added to the general revenue column.
Total general government revenue increased by 1.7 per cent year-on-year over the two-month period if recent changes to the accounting practice are taken into account.
The central government collected 1.16 trillion yuan, a fall of 1.7 per cent year-on-year.
The aggregate of revenue collected by all levels of local government over January and February was 1.41 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.5 per cent on the same period last year.
Though if the impact of altered accounting is removed, the annual increase comes in at 4.7 per cent.
Just over 455 billion yuan was raised via the long-term leasing of land over the two-month period, a fall of 36 per cent on the amount raised during the same period last year.
