China's fiscal revenue up 16.3 pct in first nine months

File photo shows a worker counts Chinese currency Renminbi banknotes at a bank in Tancheng County of Linyi City, east China's Shandong Province. (Xinhua/Zhang Chunlei)

BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's fiscal revenue logged a year-on-year increase of 16.3 percent in the first nine months of the year, official data showed Friday.

The country's fiscal revenue amounted to 16.4 trillion yuan (about 2.56 trillion U.S. dollars) during the period, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.

Tax revenue came in at 14.07 trillion yuan in the January-September period, up 18.4 percent, year on year.

Revenue from value-added tax, the largest source of fiscal revenue in the country, jumped 17.4 percent from a year earlier to 5.01 trillion yuan.

The central government and local governments collected 7.65 trillion yuan and 8.75 trillion yuan in fiscal revenue, respectively, with a year-on-year rise of 17.1 percent and 15.6 percent.

Friday's data also showed that China's fiscal spending went up 2.3 percent, year on year, to 17.93 trillion yuan in the nine months.

Fiscal spending on education rose 5.2 percent year on year, while health and medical care spending grew by 2.3 percent, said the ministry.