(Yicai) July 5 -- Four of China’s 31 provincial-level regions had fiscal revenue of more than CNY400 billion (USD55 billion) in the first five months of the year, according to data compiled by the Yuekai Securities Research Institute.

Guangdong province continued to rank first, collecting CNY562.7 billion through taxation and other means in the year to May 31, despite a 1.5 percent drop from a year earlier, the figures showed.

Jiangsu province was second with CNY485.6 billion, a 1.8 percent annual increase. Zhejiang province’s fiscal revenue fell 0.2 percent to CNY465.8 billion, while that of Shanghai rose 1.5 percent to CNY409.3 billion. Each of the three regions is in the east of the country.

Local governments’ general public budget revenue, the comprehensive income collected by the them and used to fund public expenditure, edged up 0.5 percent to CNY5.41 trillion (USD742.9 billion) in the first five months of the year, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Fourteen of the regions had fiscal revenue growth above the 0.5 percent average, according to the Yuekai Institute’s calculations. Guangzhou, Zhejiang, and seven others reported falls in the period.

Only four regions had growth rates of over 10 percent: Tibet Autonomous Region and Chongqing in the west, Jilin province in the northeast, and Hubei province in Central China.

The Yuekai Institute attributed the small increase in general public budget revenue at local governments to a slump in tax takings, which was offset a little by high non-tax income.

With tax revenues under pressure, local authorities are relying increasingly on non-tax sources of income from state-owned assets and resources, said Luo Zhiheng, chief economist at Yuekai Securities.

Five of the regions saw their non-tax revenue increase by more than 20 percent: Chongqing, Jilin, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Shandong. Four of them reported fiscal revenue increases of over 5 percent.

Income from the use of municipal public resources such as carparks and from advert placement rights, as well as rental and lending income from non-business assets of administrative bodies also increased, Luo added.

Editor: Futura Costaglione