国内英语新闻:China's fiscal revenue up 19.6% in June

BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Finance announced Monday that the country's fiscal revenue in June rose 19.6 percent year on year to 686.75 billion yuan (100.5 billion U.S. dollars).

    However, in the first half of this year, fiscal revenue fell 2.4 percent to 3.398 trillion yuan, said the ministry in a statement on its website.

    The growth rate last month was 14.8 percentage points higher than the growth rate in May. Fiscal revenue fell 9.9 percent in the first four months this year from a year earlier to 2.05 trillion yuan due to shrinking business profits hit by the global economic slowdown and active fiscal policies including tax cuts to buoy domestic economic growth.

    The ministry attributed the revenue rise in June to the stabilization of overall economic performance, growing business profits and the increase in the cigarette tax.

    The government announced on June 20 the tax on cigarette cartons costing 70 yuan or more would rise to 56 percent from 45 percent, and the tax on cigarette cartons costing less than 70 yuan would rise from 30 to 36 percent.

    Sales tax revenues rose 63.1 percent year on year in June, with business tax revenues edging up 6.4 percent, but the ministry did not specify the figures.

    In June, China's fiscal expenditure increased 21.5 percent to 640.56 billion yuan from a year earlier. From January to June, the figure stood at 2.89 trillion yuan, up 26.3 percent from the same period last year.

    The government unveiled a 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package in November last year to be spent over the next two years to shore up the world's third largest economy, with 1.18 trillion yuan from the central government.

    Fiscal revenue includes taxes as well as administrative fees and other government income, such as fines and income from state-owned assets.