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CHINA / National |
Lawmaker urges govt to spend more on welfare(China Daily/Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-12-18 06:56 A senior legislator Monday urged the government to use the extra revenue beyond this year's budget to finance public services, improve people's livelihood and reduce the fiscal deficit. "The government must make a special budget for the extra money between 700 billion ($94.85 billion) and 800 billion yuan ($108.40 billion) and implement it with the legislature's approval," said Jiang Zhenghua, vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. The government could take advantage of drastic rises in revenue to increase the capital input in public services such as social securities, reemployment, healthcare, sanitation and housing subsidies, and bankroll primary education in rural areas, China Securities Journal quoted Jiang as saying. The director of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science, under the Ministry of Finance, Jia Kang, said earlier this month that this year's revenue might reach 5.1 trillion yuan ($691.10 billion) up 31 percent over last year. The 2007 revenue was budgeted at 4.4 trillion yuan ($596.24 billion) compared with an expenditure of 4.65 trillion yuan ($630.12 billion). The government has adopted a prudent fiscal policy since 2003, with the country's fiscal deficit rate continuously falling from 2.9 percent in 2003 to nearly 1.1 percent this year. The government's national revenue more than doubled from 2 trillion yuan ($271.02 billion) in 2003 to 4 trillion yuan ($542.04 billion) in 2006. This year, the central government spent 31.276 billion yuan ($4.23 billion) in the health sector, up 86.8 percent over last year. And it will expand the new rural cooperative medical insurance system, aimed at helping farmers pay their medical bills, to more than 80 percent of the nation's counties. Also, it has put 223.5 billion yuan ($30.28 billion) into compulsory education in rural areas this year, up 39.5 percent over last year, to ensure that all children get free nine-year compulsory education. Xinhua |
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