China's fiscal revenue for the first 10 months had reached 1.815 trillion yuan (US$219.5 billion), 21 percent higher than the same period last year.

Officials with the Ministry of Finance said that the figure was approaching the total sum of last year, which amounted to 1.891 trillion yuan (US$228.7 billion), despite the impacts of the SARS crisis and some severe natural disasters.

Officials said that China's fiscal revenue had kept increasing at an annual rate of 17.5 percent from 1994 to 2002, and its proportion in gross domestic product (GDP) also rose from 11.2 percent in 1994 to 18.5 percent in 2002.

The increase in fiscal revenue should be attributed to a decade of reforms in China's fiscal and tax systems, which grew to be more open and standardized during the country's transition from the planned economy to the socialist market economy, officials said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2003)