Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing told the national legislature Saturday that government departments concerned began in 2003 to adopt five clear-cut policies to handle the problem of unpaid export tax rebates.

Under the policies, the government will restructure export rebate rates, retaining some of them while lowering others, with an average reduction of around 3 percentage points, Jin said in a report on the implementation of the central and local budgets for 2003 and on the draft central and local budgets for 2004.

Meanwhile, total export tax rebates verified for 2003 will be taken as the base figure, and payment for the portion of export tax rebates that exceed the base figure, if any, will be shared by the central and local governments at a ratio of 75:25 beginning in2004.

Any increase in the value added tax (VAT) and consumption tax on imports collected by the central government will be used first to pay export tax rebates. The central government will pay the full sum of the aggregate arrears in export tax rebates due to enterprises before the end of 2003.

The portion of the VAT and consumption tax on imports collected by the central government in 2003 that exceeded the pre-set targets, totaling 82.9 billion yuan, has all been used to pay export tax rebates, said Jin.

(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2004)