Xinhua News Agency:

As Vice Minister Wang just mentioned, China's fiscal spending expanded by 2.9% in the first quarter, ensuring effective funding for key areas . Could you provide further information on how this budget was allocated? Thank you.

Wang Dongwei:

Thank you for your question. In the first quarter, finance departments at all levels kept their belts tightened and continued to prioritize and ensure funding for key areas, while observing the principle of controlling general expenditures. In the first quarter, China's general public budget spending was nearly 7 trillion yuan (US$985 billion), up by 2.9% compared to the same period last year. This was not easy, especially due to last year's concentrated settlements with pandemic-related expenses. This growth underscores our efforts in enhancing the intensity of our proactive fiscal policy as well as to improve its quality and effectiveness. Here, I'd like to elaborate on how we have achieved this.

First, all funds from additionally issued treasury bonds were allocated at the beginning of the year. An additional one trillion yuan of treasury bonds issued in the fourth quarter of last year were mostly used this year. By the end of February, the Ministry of Finance had already assigned all one-trillion-yuan bonds to local governments. Official data showed that the funds specifically targeting expenditures in urban and rural communities, agriculture, forestry, water conservancy , and disaster prevention and emergency management increased by 12.1%, 13.1% and 53.4% year-over-year, respectively, showing double-digit growth.

Second, over 80% of transfer payments' budget has been issued. For 2024, the central government has planned 10.2 trillion yuan for transfer payments to local governments, a comparable increase of 4.1%. After the National People's Congress approved the central budget for 2024, the Ministry of Finance promptly completed the budget allocation as per the Budget Law .

By early April, all of the central government's budgets for this year were approved with 8.68 trillion yuan of transfer payments being allocated to local governments, accounting for 85.1% of the budget that was set early this year. All projects eligible under general transfer payments and those under shared fiscal powers have been fully funded.

Third, the process of making budgetary funds available for fiscal expenditures has been accelerated. In the first quarter, China's general public budget spending has already completed 24.5% of the total budget, exceeding the average rate for the same period over the past three years. Several sectors registered rapid growth in fiscal spending, including social security and employment, healthcare, urban and rural communities, transportation, and housing. Fiscal spending with social security and employment reached 30.7%, urban and rural communities 26.2%, healthcare 25.1% and transportation 25.1%. All ahead of schedule.

That's all I'm going to say for this question. Thank you.