China's fiscal revenue up 8.6 percent in Q1

BEIJING, April 20 (Xinhua) -- China's fiscal revenue logged a year-on-year increase of 8.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, official data showed Wednesday.

The country's fiscal revenue amounted to 6.2 trillion yuan (about 968.81 billion U.S. dollars) during the period, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.

Tax revenue came in at 5.25 trillion yuan in the January-March period, up 7.7 percent year on year.

Revenue from value-added tax, the largest source of fiscal revenue in the country, increased 3.6 percent from a year earlier to 1.92 trillion yuan, while that of individual income tax amounted to 464.5 billion yuan in the first three months, an increase of 16.5 percent.

Stamp tax revenue jumped 20.6 percent year on year to 156.9 billion yuan. Specifically, stock-trading stamp tax revenue registered a yearly rise of 21.3 percent.

The central government and local governments collected 2.89 trillion yuan and 3.31 trillion yuan in fiscal revenue, up 7.6 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively.

Wednesday's data also showed that China's fiscal spending rose 8.3 percent year on year to 6.36 trillion yuan in the first three months.

Fiscal spending on education rose 8.5 percent year on year, while that on science and technology jumped 22.4 percent, the ministry said.