Chinese finance minister outlines measures to guarantee necessary fiscal expenditure

Chinese Finance Minister Lan Fo'an on Saturday outlined three measures aimed at balancing the country's finances for this year while keeping fiscal operation generally stable and guaranteeing expenditures in key areas.

Speaking at a press conference, Lan emphasized that the Chinese government will focus on increasing fiscal strength of local governments, ensuring expenditures in key areas, and making full use of funds raised from various kinds of bonds.

So far this year, the Ministry of Finance has appropriately enhanced the intensity of its proactive fiscal policies, improved its quality and effectiveness, increased financial support for meeting people's basic living needs and key areas, and maintained fiscal expenditure intensity, in order to give full play to the countercyclical regulatory role of fiscal policy and help meet the annual economic and social development goals, Lan said.

From January to September, China's general public budget expenditure was 20.18 trillion yuan (about 2.86 trillion U.S. dollars), up 2 percent, according to Lan.

"Government spending on social security and employment increased by 4.3 percent, education by 1.1 percent, agriculture, forestry and water resources by 6.4 percent, urban and rural communities by 6.1 percent, and housing support by 2.5 percent,” Lan said.

"The general public budget revenue is lower than the target set in the budget at the beginning of the year. We will take a full range of measures to break even this year," Lan added.

According to the minister, the central government has already allocated 400 billion yuan (about 57 billion U.S. dollars) from the local government debt balance limit to supplement comprehensive financial resources of local governments and support local governments in resolving existing debts of investment projects and repaying debts owed to enterprises.

"Local governments are encouraged to make full use of idle assets, strengthen the management of state-owned capital income, and strive to increase fiscal revenue," Lan said.

The central government will also guide local governments to use existing funds such as budget stabilization funds in accordance with laws and regulations to meet fiscal expenditure needs, he added.

In order to ensure key expenditures, the ministry will also make consistent efforts to strictly control general expenditures, and allocate more funds to shore up weak links and improve people's livelihoods, Lan said.

"We will strengthen support for expenditures in key areas such as science and technology and education, increase the basic pension for urban and rural residents and the financial subsidies for basic public health services, and provide strong support for major strategies such as full rural revitalization, green development and coordinated regional development to ensure all policies adopted by the Party Central Committee are fully implemented," he said.

At present, the ministry is also accelerating the use of funds raised from additional treasury bonds, while also issuing ultra-long special treasury bonds, said the minister.

"In terms of special-purpose bonds, a total of 2.3 trillion yuan (about 325 billion U.S. dollars) of funds raised from special-purpose bonds, combining remaining quota and unused funds, will be available for local governments across the country in the next three months. We will urge local governments to make the best of funds raised from various kinds of bonds to speed up projects and pay out in a timely manner according to actual needs to generate tangible outcomes as soon as possible and boost investment," Lan said.

Chinese finance minister outlines measures to guarantee necessary fiscal expenditure

Chinese finance minister outlines measures to guarantee necessary fiscal expenditure

Chinese finance minister outlines measures to guarantee necessary fiscal expenditure

Chinese finance minister outlines measures to guarantee necessary fiscal expenditure

Chinese finance minister outlines measures to guarantee necessary fiscal expenditure

Over 80,000 foreign travelers have entered south China's Hainan Province visa-free since the launch of the island-wide special customs operations in the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP), an increase of 64 percent year on year, according to official data.

Since the special customs operations began on Dec 18, 2025, ports across the province have maintained stable operation, with the number of foreign travelers continuously growing.

Data from the Haikou General Station of Immigration Inspection showed that from Dec 18, 2025 to Friday, ports across Hainan inspected 180,000 foreign nationals entering and exiting the country, an increase of 46.5 percent year on year, accounting for 58.6 percent of the total number of inbound and outbound travelers during the same period.

A total of 80,000 foreign travelers entered under visa-free policies, accounting for 94.2 percent of the total number of foreign tourists entering the country during the period.

Most of the foreign travelers came to China for tourism, who were mainly from Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Kazakhstan, and Singapore.

Hainan sees sharp increase in foreign travelers entering visa-free