China's vehicle sales may rise by 12% to 5.75 million units in 2005 from a year ago, the commerce ministry said in a report posted on its website.

Total production of Volkswagen AG, General Motors Corp and other vehicle makers in China may rise by about 15% this year to 5.83 million units, according to the ministry's report.

Vehicle demand in China, the world's third largest automobile market, started to recover from March as customers concluded prices had bottomed out.

First-half vehicle sales rose 9.4% to 2.79 million units and output increased by 5.2% to 2.82 million units during the period, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Vehicle prices fell 3.4% in the first half from a year earlier, according to the price monitoring arm of the National Development and Reform Commission. Passenger car prices fell 8% from a year earlier during the period, according to the agency.
 
Source: Associated Press

China's fiscal revenues grew by 14.6 percent year-on-year during the first half of this year to 1.639 trillion yuan (about 202.3 billion US dollars), the Ministry of Finance said Sunday.

Budget spending at central and local levels totaled 1.242 trillion yuan (153.3 billion US dollars) during the January-June period, up 15 percent, the ministry said.

Central fiscal spending was up 1.5 percent, but central fiscal revenues rose 10.1 percent, while fiscal spending by local governments jumped by 20.9 percent and local fiscal revenues grew by 21 percent.
An official with the ministry blamed low central fiscal revenues to increased spending by the central governments on export tax rebates.

The central government paid 150.3 billion yuan (18.5 billion US dollars) in export tax rebates during the first six months of this year, or 104.4 billion yuan (12.7 billion US dollars) more than the same period of last year.

The national fiscal revenues would have jumped by 21.9 percent if the central government had not paid the increased sum of export tax rebates, and the central fiscal revenues would have been increased by 19.4 percent, the official said.

The official said key budget spending policies have been implemented at planned paces, including allocation of budget subsidies for grain production.

The central government, through provincial governments, delivered 9.53 billion yuan (1.17 billion US dollars) in direct grain production subsidies to farmers across the country during the first half of the year,77 percent of the 13.2 billion yuan (1.62 billion US dollars) planned for the whole year.

China began to offer subsidies directly to grain growers since last year in a bid to encourage farmers to grow more grain for domestic consumption.

Source: Associated Press