SHENZHEN has spent 66.2 percent of its expenditure on improving people’s livelihood in 2019, which totaled 301.3 billion yuan (US$43.97 billion), up 8.7 percent year on year, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported yesterday.

According to the city’s finance bureau, Shenzhen’s fiscal revenue and expenditure remained steady in 2019. The local general public budget revenue grew by 6.5 percent to reach 377.3 billion yuan, accounting for 43 percent of the province’s revenue increase. The city’s general public budget expenditure amounted to 455.1 billion yuan, up 6.2 percent.

Among the nine categories of expenditure on people’s livelihood, education and health spending rose by 22.6 percent and 19.2 percent, respectively. New local government bonds reached 31.4 billion yuan, an increase of 26.2 billion yuan over the previous year.

Shenzhen cut more than 110 billion yuan in taxes and fees in 2019, more than 90 billion yuan of which were new tax cuts.

Meanwhile, the city issued its first regulations on the use and management of financial and scientific research funds in Hong Kong and Macao.

In 2019, the city government allocated 12.3 billion yuan of special financial funds to support scientific research, of which 37 percent went to basic research and applied basic research.

Additionally, a 5-billion-yuan fund was put into use for small and medium-sized companies and micro firms to mitigate risks in bank loans, with new bank loans exceeding 100 billion yuan.

More than 60 percent of the new local special bonds have been invested in the field of water pollution control and quality improvement, according to the bureau.

The city also invested more than 3.6 billion yuan in special funds to push targeted poverty relief programs last year.

(Zhang Yu)