Budget reform in China: Progress and prospects in the Xi Jinping era

Abstract

Fiscal reforms were central to the comprehensive programme of reforms announced at the Third Plenum of the 18th Party Congress in November 2013, during the first year of the Xi Jinping administration. One of the significant reforms on focus is public financial management (PFM). The urgency of PFM reform can be traced, paradoxically, to the extraordinary growth experienced by the Chinese economy during the first decade of this century, when easy money and weak accountability gave rise to unprecedented waste, corruption, and a mountain of local government debt. The proposed fiscal reforms are aimed at fixing these problems. They are ambitious and comprehensive, and are well designed to impro..