Shenzhen's local fiscal revenue first exceeded 300 billion yuan (US$43.5 billion) last year, retaining a top position in the country and a brisk figure given the fact that China's economy has been facing increased downward pressure and the country reduced taxes to relieve the burden on businesses.

Shenzhen created a total fiscal revenue of more than 790 billion yuan in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 9.1 percent. 476.5 billion yuan of the fiscal revenue is for the Central Government, the Shenzhen Economic Daily quoted the city's financial authorities as saying yesterday.

The rest went to local fiscal revenue, amounting to 313.6 billion yuan, a rise of 15 percent year on year, according to the report.

The number brought the city up to the third ranking among major cities nationwide, after Shanghai (616.6 billion yuan) and Beijing (488 billion yuan). On average, every square kilometer in the city generated 400 million yuan in fiscal revenue, which is the highest among major cities in the country.

Shenzhen, which occupies about 0.02 percent of China's terrority and houses less than 0.1 percent of China's population, contributed to more than 8 percent of the growth of China's fiscal revenue last year, the Daily said. It accounted for more than 30 percent of Guangdong Province's fiscal revenue.

In the first 11 months of last year, the city collected 465.24 billion yuan in local and state taxes after deducting customs duty, value-added and business taxes, and stamp duties for the stock exchange, marking an increase of 18.1 percent.

In terms of industries, tertiary industry contributed more than 70 percent of the city's total tax revenue and over 60 percent of the city's GDP for the first time between January and November last year.

During the period, emerging industries created more tax revenue, generating 163.14 billion yuan of tax revenue in total, up 21.9 percent from the same period last year. Internet and creative culture industries witnessed growth in tax revenue at a rate of 33.1 percent and 41 percent, respectively.

Shenzhen's top 50 enterprises continued to lead in tax payment in 2016, which turned in 136.2 billion yuan in total between January and November, an increase of 22.6 percent compared to 2015. Among them, Huawei Technologies took first place, followed by China Merchants Bank. Huawei Investment & Holding Co. Ltd. for the first time made it into the top three in tax payment last year. Seven heavyweight enterprise groups including Huawei, Ping An and Tencent yielded a total of 87.06 billion yuan in taxes.

Meanwhile, Shenzhen's fiscal expenditure exceeded 400 billion yuan for the first time last year.

The money was allocated to subsidize and award talent, encourage the development of innovative startups, set up colleges, beef up public security, boost the growth of State-owned firms, improve infrastructure such as rails, and support small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Implementing a national policy to replace the business tax with a value-added tax, Shenzhen cut 24.8 billion yuan in taxes to relieve the burden on businesses, accounting for 5 percent of the national total.

(Mu Zi)