Reductions made in line with Party's frugality drive, finance ministry says

The central government budget for official vehicles, receptions and overseas trips has fallen by 10.3 percent this year compared with 2013 in line with the ongoing frugality campaign, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday.

The budget for the three categories - known as the "three public expenses" - is 7.151 billion yuan ($1.144 billion) this year, about 818 million yuan less than last year, the ministry said.

Compared with the 2013 budget, the ministry has cut spending on official vehicles by 272 million yuan, spending on receptions by 386 million yuan, while the outlay on overseas trips has been cut by 160 million yuan.

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The reduced budget is in line with the frugality regulations issued by the Communist Party of China's Central Committee and the State Council, the ministry said.

Last year, the "three public expenses" reached 7.154 billion yuan, about 815 million yuan or 10.2 percent less than the budget figure, according to the ministry.

It said the drop in public spending is a result of the "eight-point" rules put forward by the Party in December 2012.

The rules require government officials to get close to the people by cleaning up undesirable work practices, including extravagance, hedonism, bureaucracy and formalism. A total of 30,420 officials were punished last year for violating the rules.

Most central government ministries and commissions published their budgets on official websites on Friday.

The Ministry of Justice said its budget for the "three public expenses" is 14.19 million yuan, 6.11 percent less than last year, while the Ministry of Land and Resources has cut its budget for such expenses by 3.2 million yuan, to 30.17 million yuan.

Most provincial governments cut their budgets for the "three public expenses" by 5 to 30 percent early this year.

Ren Jianming, a professor of clean-governance research at Beihang University, said the budget reduction shows that public funds have not been used efficiently in past years.

In a recent high-profile case, China Railway Construction Corp, one of the country's largest State-owned enterprises, was criticized by the public for spending 837.5 million yuan on receptions in 2012.

In its 2013 financial report released in March, the company canceled an item termed "receptions" in its accounting statement. Spending on an item described as "management fees", which included the subsidiary item "receptions" in its 2012 report, increased by nearly 2.2 billion yuan last year.

Ren said audit authorities should do a better job of supervising government bodies. "Those who make fraudulent accounts must be punished strictly," he said.

Some local authorities have started pilot projects under reform measures for government vehicles, such as auctioning surplus government cars, he added.

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