China Budget Spending Slide Deepens in Worrying Sign for Economy
- Broad fiscal spending down 2.9% in first eight months of 2024
- Figures show cooling economy is yet to get stimulus it needs
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China’s broad budget expenditure shrank at a faster clip amid an unprecedented drop in income earned by local governments from land sales, an alarming sign for an economy desperately in need of fiscal support.
The combined spending in the general public budget and the government fund account was about 22.21 trillion yuan ($3.15 trillion) in the first eight months of the year, down 2.9% from the same point in 2023, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released by the Ministry of Finance on Friday. It deteriorated further from a decrease of 2% in the January-July period.