Tax & Spend
Xi Vows to Rewire China’s Finances, Help Indebted Regions
- Tax reforms aimed at easing local governments’ debt burden
- Third Plenum signals no shift from top leader’s big vision
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President Xi Jinping unveiled sweeping plans to bolster the finances of China’s indebted local governments, as the ruling Communist Party announced a long-term blueprint for the world’s second-largest economy that offered few major surprises.
China’s top leader mapped out measures for fixing the debt crisis facing regional authorities in a near-22,200 character resolution of a major meeting published by the official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday. Those plans — already hinted at by state media — centered around shifting more revenue from the central to local coffers, such as by letting regional governments receive a larger share of consumption tax.