Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 22: Question: Where does the money come from? "We will work hard from both qualitative and quantitative aspects, both adding and subtracting, adjusting the structure, maintaining and suppressing, and resolutely implementing more positive and promi

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 22. question: Where does the money come from? How to protect the "three guarantees"? How to spend "tight days"? ——Minister of Finance Liu Kun Q&A on the 2020 "National Account Book"

At the first "Ministerial Channel" of the National Two Sessions held that day, faced with the hot financial issues that reporters at the branch meeting were concerned about, Minister of Finance Liu Kun responded immediately.

How can this year’s proactive fiscal policy be further strengthened? Fiscal revenue is tight, where does the money for rigid expenditures come from?

"We will work hard both qualitatively and quantitatively, both adding and subtracting, adjusting the structure, maintaining and suppressing, and resolutely implementing more positive and promising requirements." Liu Kun said.

One manifestation of proactive fiscal policy is increased expenditure. When income growth slows down, we must solve the problem of where the money comes from.

Liu Kun calculated an addition problem: the fiscal deficit rate is planned to be increased to more than 3.6%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points from last year, and an increase of 1 trillion yuan in fiscal funds; the central government will also issue 1 trillion yuan of special government bonds to fight the epidemic, and transfer nearly one trillion yuan of funds from state-owned capital operating budgets and other aspects. In addition, the scale of local government special bonds will be increased by 1.6 trillion yuan.

He did some calculations and found that this year’s national general public budget revenue and expenditure are expected to exceed 18 trillion yuan and 24.7 trillion yuan respectively. Once one is collected, the extra 6.7 trillion yuan will be the release of fiscal funds. The intensity has been increased compared with last year, and hedging has been done to achieve positive results.

In addition, Liu Kun said that last year, my country’s tax and fee reductions reached 2.36 trillion yuan, and this institutional arrangement will continue to be implemented this year. In response to the impact of the epidemic, the Party Central Committee and the State Council have introduced a series of tax reduction and fee reduction measures. It is expected that the new scale of tax reduction and fee reduction this year will reach more than 2.5 trillion yuan.

Affected by the epidemic, local governments are having a hard time this year. In response to media concerns about the "three guarantees" of local governments' basic livelihood, wages and operations, Liu Kun responded clearly that overall, local fiscal operations are stable and normal.

He said that the decline in fiscal revenue this year has affected both the central and local governments. The scale of local fiscal revenue reduction and expenditure increase is between 800 billion yuan and 900 billion yuan, and the "three guarantees" in some places are facing greater pressure. However, in the past few months, the central government has accelerated the release of transfer payment funds, increased the proportion of local fiscal funds retained, and alleviated local financial difficulties.

"Strengthening financial support for local governments is the focus of this year's budget arrangement." Liu Kun said that all the funds for the increase in the central government's deficit ratio this year will be allocated to local governments, and all the revenue from the central government's issuance of special anti-epidemic treasury bonds will be used to support local infrastructure construction and anti-epidemic-related expenditures, which is a strong support for local fiscal operations.

In addition, the central government has specially set up special transfer payments to support local grassroots operations, protect basic people's livelihood, and implement the "six guarantees" tasks. The central government's balanced transfer payments to local governments and the county-level basic financial security mechanism reward and subsidy arrangements have increased by 10%. Special arrangements will also be made to support Hubei, and all efforts will be made to ensure the normal operation of local finances.

Faced with tight fiscal revenue and expenditure, how should the government survive this year's "tight days"?

In recent years, general expenditures such as "three public affairs" funds have been reduced year by year, but Liu Kun believes that there is still room for scientific budget arrangements, thrift, careful budgeting, and improvement of quality and efficiency.

In addition, he said that there is no contradiction between the government's "tight living" and ensuring the basic operation of the political power. This year, non-urgent and non-rigid expenditures at the central level have been reduced by more than 50%, but rigid expenditures such as wages are guaranteed, and the normal operation of agencies is also guaranteed.Money that is extravagant and wasteful should never be spent, nor should money with poor performance be spent. Those who spend money will be held accountable according to laws and regulations.

In terms of government expenditure management, he proposed to vigorously reduce general expenditures, especially "three public expenditures", strictly control expenditures on conferences, consulting and training, forums and exhibitions, and strictly prohibit the construction and expansion of government buildings and venues.

"At present, we must strictly control non-urgent expenditures, spend money wisely, do a good job in the 'three guarantees' work at the grassroots level, implement the 'six guarantees' fund arrangement, and secure the bottom line of people's livelihood." Liu Kun said.