BEIJING, July 15 -- China's tax revenue, a major source of the government's fiscal income, grew 8.5 percent year on year in the first half of 2014, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced on Tuesday.

During the January-June period, national tax revenue amounted to 6.43 trillion yuan (1.05 trillion U.S. dollars). The growth was 0.6 percentage points higher than the rate seen in the same period last year, the data showed.

The ministry attributed the steady growth to the stable economy and inflation level, as well as recovering import volume that lifted related taxes.

Revenue from domestic value-added tax (VAT), a type of tax levied on the difference between a commodity's retail price and production cost, increased 6.1 percent to 1.52 trillion yuan.

Consumption tax revenues grew 4.8 percent to 456.16 billion yuan, quickening 1.2 percentage points from the rate a year earlier, thanks to steady revenues from the tobacco and auto market.

Taxes on imports rose 8.6 percent to 693.3 billion yuan during the period, a significant jump from the same period last year as the foreign trade volume gained momentum.

Notably, turnover taxes and deed taxes in the property sector suffered a sharp slowdown, with the growth rate retreating 39.1 percentage points and 28.1 percentage points from a year earlier to 6.6 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively.

Fiscal revenue in China includes taxes, administrative fees and other government income such as fines and earnings from state-owned assets.

Previous MOF data showed that fiscal revenue rose 8.8 percent year on year to 7.46 trillion yuan from January to June.