Finance Minister Jin Renqing delivers a report to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the legislature, June 27, 2006. (Xinhua Photo)

China's fiscal revenue soared almost 20 percent in 2005 to hit a record 3.16 trillion yuan (395 billion U.S. dollars), Finance Minister Jin Renqing said on Tuesday.

The figure was achieved by the implementation of a prudent fiscal policy since 2005 that enabled stable and rapid economic growth and more forceful revenue collection by finance, taxation and customs departments.

The 3,393 billion-yuan (424.1 billion U.S. dollars) national fiscal expenditure, up 19.1 percent over the previous year, outnumbered revenue by 228 billion yuan (28.5 billion dollars), Jin said when delivering a report to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the legislature.

The central treasury pocketed 1,726 billion yuan (215.75 billion dollars), the two largest sources being value-added tax (VAT) revenue of 793.1 billion yuan (99.1 billion dollars) and consumer tax, VAT and tariff on imports totaling 527.7 billion yuan (65.9 billion dollars).

Some 702.2 billion yuan (87.8 billion dollars) of state bonds were issued by the central treasury to claim 692.2 billion yuan (86.5 billion dollars) in revenue for the state coffers, nearly 300 billion yuan of which was used to offset the budget deficit, he said.

About 35.3 billion yuan (4.4 billion dollars) of the 163.7 billion yuan (20.4 billion dollars) by the central treasury was used for tax rebates to local treasuries, general transfer payment, transfer payment for minority-concentrated regions, educational and scientific undertakings, and the rest went to paying money overdue to avert financial risks.

Editor: Yan