Land Sales Slump Isn’t Killing Local Budgets, Finance Minister Says

(Bloomberg) — China’s local governments tap less than a fifth of the income they make from selling land to help fulfill their daily spending needs, according to China’s finance minister, who insisted this week that the hit regional authorities have taken from declining land sales is limited.

The money that local governments pull in from land sales makes up roughly 90% of the revenue in their government fund budget, or the balance sheet keeping track of specific projects. Yet just about 15% of that fund budget income is then allocated to their general public budget, or the main financial book they use to cover education, health care, disaster relief and other public services, Finance Minister Liu Kun said Wednesday at a briefing.