Government and Policy

Premier Wen vows transparency in govt budgets

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-09-19 15:03

BEIJING - The Chinese government will ensure more transparent official budgets from this year, said Premier Wen Jiabao in a speech made public Sunday.

According to the document released by the State Council, Wen made the speech on August 27 at a meeting on lawful administration.

"This year we will work to improve the transparency of government budgets. Governments should be required to include all their revenue and spending in the budget report," said the document.

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All governments in China are required by law to submit their budget reports to the appropriate people's congress for review and approval.

China's lawmakers are considering amending the Budget Law, but the amendment draft has not been reviewed yet.

In March, Gao Qiang, vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Financial and Economic Affairs Committee and director of the NPC Standing Committee's Budgetary Affairs Commission, told Xinhua the draft amendment would ensure that "budgets are more complete" and clearly state that "all the government's revenue and expenditures should be included in budget."

It had been common for local governments to record much more revenue than budgeted, and the surplus was not supervised by people's congresses, said Gao.

The so-called "extra-budgetary funds" include revenues to local governments from land deals.

The governments should release information about all public spending, spending on infrastructure, the administrative expenses budget and its implementation, Wen said in the speech.

Early this year, some ministries and central government departments published their budgets from last year and implementation reports of the budgets.

"We have received good feedback and many suggestions (about budget transparency). We should keep improving our work," Wen said.

He promised that all government information, which is required to be published by law, should be made public promptly, precisely and in detail.

He said transparency was key to lawful governance.

Wen said the task of building a lawful government was an essential aspect of the reform of the country's political system.

"Our country's economic and social development has entered a new phase. More challenges have emerged as domestic and overseas environments become more complicated. We should deepen reform while promoting administration in accordance with the law in order to solve new problems," he said.

City and county governments, in particular, should improve their awareness of lawful governance as they dealt with the public on the daily basis, he said.