China's fiscal revenue has registered its first positive year-on-year growth for the first time this year.

The national fiscal revenues in May grew by 4.8% over last year's figure, or over 30 billion yuan, to nearly 657 billion yuan, according to China's Ministry of Finance (MOF).

Fiscal revenues at the central and local levels rose by 5.7% and 3.3%, to a total of 406.3 billion yuan and 250.6 billion yuan respectively.

The growth contrasts with a 13.6% decline in fiscal revenue in April.
However, the fiscal situation remains tight. The first five months of 2009, saw a 195.5 billion yuan dip, a decline of 6.7% on last years numbers, in the national fiscal revenue.

According to the MOF, fiscal revenues in the first five months of this year reached over 2.7 trillion yuan, 40.9% of the estimated figure for total annual fiscal revenue as set out in the 2009 budget.

The ministry attributed the decline over the first five months of the year to three mains factors: the slide in business profits as economic growth slowed, tax cut schemes launched earlier in the year to spur the country's economy and the effect of the downward trend in both the consumer price index (CPI) and the producer price index (PPI).

While fiscal revenue has begun to rally, the country's fiscal expenditure continues to soar, registering a year-on-year increase of 14.5% to 460.8 billion yuan in May, according to the MOF.

Total expenditure in the five months was 27.8% higher than the same period last year, reaching a total of 2.24 trillion yuan.

China still registered a fiscal surplus of 461.1 billion yuan in May, but the ministry indicated that the outlook for the rest of the year was grim, with an annual budget deficit of 950 billion yuan projected for this year.

Click here to read the original statement (in Chinese) from China's Ministry of Finance.
Treasury Revenue in May