The Beijing government collected property tax revenue of 25.04 billion yuan (US$3.67 billion) in the first ten months this year, down 2.83 billion yuan or 10.1 percent year-on-year, said the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau on Monday.

The city's tax revenue of all items amounted to 136.34 billion yuan in the January-October period, up 16 percent year-on-year. Tax revenue from the service industry kept its rapid uptrend, and accounted for a larger proportion of the total revenue. However, the growth rate of tax revenue from construction and finance industries slowed, while revenue from the property industry declined.

As property purchasers took a wait-and-see attitude toward the real estate market, property sales slowed, causing Beijing's tax revenue from the property industry to drop in the second quarter this year. It then plummeted a further 37.3 percent in the third quarter, said Jin Yanqi, an official at the bureau.

The downturn of the realty market resulted in Beijing's tax revenue from the construction industry totaling 8.07 billion yuan, up 1.1 percent year-on-year, yet the growth rate was 22.3 percentage points lower than the previous year.

Affected by the global financial crisis, Beijing's tax revenue from the finance industry amounted to 19.94 billion yuan, up 52.5 percent from the previous year, while the growth rate was 24.4 percentage points lower from the same period last year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2008)