Chinese provinces count the cost of trade war, tax reforms as fiscal revenue growth slumps

Official figures show average growth rate among 28 province-level authorities in first nine months was just 3.1 per cent, compared with 7.8 per cent for the same period of 2018

Beijing saw its fiscal revenue grow by just 0.3 per cent in the January-September period, down from 6 per cent a year earlier

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China’s provincial governments have seen their fiscal revenues slump this year. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:11pm, 2 Nov 2019Updated: 11:14pm, 2 Nov 2019

Provincial governments across China saw their fiscal revenue growth slump in the first nine months of the year on the back of weakened economies and central government reforms that significantly reduced their tax revenues.

In the first three quarters of last year, the average growth rate for all of the nation’s province-level authorities was 7.8 per cent. For the 28 that have so far reported figures for the equivalent period of this year, the average growth was just 3.1 per cent, with 16 of them failing to achieve the mean figure.

The central government booked 3.3 per cent growth in the January-September period, according to figures released earlier by the Ministry of Finance.

More than a third of provincial governments reported they had failed to meet their economic growth targets for the first three-quarters. Photo: Xinhua

The disappointing data came after more than a third of province-level governments reported that they had failed to meet their economic growth targets for the first three-quarters.

While the US-China trade war has weighed on economies across China, regional authorities have also been hit by the sweeping tax reforms introduced by the finance ministry earlier in the year.