Conclusion: In April 2024, the growth of general public budget revenue will continue to slow down, the fiscal expenditure will slightly speed up, the deficit will be used relatively quickly, and the gap between fiscal revenue and expenditure will slightly expand year-on-year. We believe that in the next stage, we can focus on the acceleration of the issuance of local government bonds to re form strong support for social finance and economic growth.
Data: From January to April, the national general public budget revenue was 8092.6 billion yuan, down 2.7% year on year, and from January to March was - 2.3% year on year; The national general public budget expenditure was 8948.3 billion yuan, up 3.5% year on year and+2.9% year on year from January to March. The budget revenue of national government funds was 1348.4 billion yuan, down 7.7% year on year, and - 4% year on year from January to March; The budget expenditure of national government funds was 2219.8 billion yuan, down 20.5% year on year, and was -15.5% year on year from January to March.
main points:
From January to April, the year-on-year decline of national general public budget revenue expanded; After deducting the influence of special factors, the growth rate is about 2%, which is also slower than the 2.2% in January to March. Among them, the domestic VAT and individual income tax increased negatively on a year-on-year basis. We understand that this is mainly due to the continuation of the tax reduction policy in the middle of last year, which was mainly aimed at the VAT reduction and exemption of small-scale taxpayers and individual businesses, and the halving of individual income tax; The corporate income tax and domestic consumption tax realized positive growth. Important taxes related to real estate have not improved significantly, including deed tax and land value-added tax, which are still negative year-on-year, pointing to the lack of recovery of real estate transactions, while property tax maintains a high growth rate.
Fiscal expenditure picked up year on year, but the pace of its monthly expenditure was not prominent. In April, the financial expenditure of a single month accounted for 6.9% of the annual target, which was at a low level in nearly eight years, only better than the level in 2022 and 2023. From the perspective of central government and local government, the expenditure has been accelerated, and the central government is still higher than the local government. In terms of expenditure orientation, the growth rate of culture and tourism, science and technology, urban and rural community agriculture, forestry and water conservancy is relatively high. The growth rate of debt interest payment is also relatively high, and the pressure of government refinancing is not small. Interest payment expenditure is relatively rigid, which may have a certain drag on fiscal expenditure in other areas.
In a broad sense, from January to April, the real estate sales and investment markets continued to adjust at a low level, the downward trend of land transfer income continued, and the year-on-year decline of government fund income expanded. According to the characteristics of government funds that "pay according to income", the growth of their expenditure has also slowed down. From January to April, government fund expenditure completed 18.5% of the annual budget, basically matching 19% of the revenue progress, and both were at a relatively slow level in the same period of nearly seven years.
In April 2024, the growth of general public budget revenue continued to slow down, and the fiscal expenditure slightly accelerated. The gap between fiscal revenue and expenditure (fiscal revenue expenditure) from January to April was -855.7 billion yuan, an increase of 531 billion yuan compared with the same period last year. The progress of deficit utilization was at a faster level in nearly eight years, second only to 2020, reflecting the tight balance between fiscal revenue and expenditure. However, the gap between revenue and expenditure of government funds is small (461.3 billion yuan more than last year). The gap between the total revenue and expenditure of the two accounts is still expanding, and the corresponding net financing demand for government bonds should be greater than the same period last year. However, the net financing of government bonds from January to April has not been significantly accelerated, with a year-on-year decrease of 1 trillion yuan.
We believe that in the next stage, we can focus on the acceleration of the issuance of local government bonds to re form strong support for social finance and economic growth. As for the de stocking of existing houses, in addition to the 300 billion yuan of re loans provided by the central bank, it is not ruled out that local governments use bond issuance to finance to support the purchase of existing commercial houses.
Risk warning: domestic macroeconomic policies are not as expected; Monetary policy is not as expected; The fiscal policy is less than or more than expected; Credit events broke out intensively.
