Ministry of Finance in Beijing Photo: VCG

The technological progress and competitive edge of Chinese enterprises do not rely on fiscal subsidies, but rather on the continuous R&D investment of Chinese enterprises and the hard work and entrepreneurship of millions of entrepreneurs, Liao Min, Vice Minister of Finance, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

"Since joining the WTO in 2001, China has consistently and firmly adhered to WTO rules and diligently fulfilled all WTO accession commitments. As of now, China has successively submitted eight central government-level notifications on subsidy policies and six local government-level notifications on subsidy policies. This is the result of our item-by-item calculation based on China's actual situation. The scale of China's fiscal subsidies notified to the WTO is far lower than the estimates of international institutions," Liao said.

"Regarding individual localities' possible violations of rules, the Chinese central government attaches great importance and resolutely corrects them," Liao said. In 2025, the Ministry of Finance has formed an inter-departmental task force to carry out special rectification of local violations of fiscal subsidy regulations.

Going forward, efforts will be made to improve the working mechanism of the task force, strengthen information sharing and supervision systems, improve the management system for fiscal subsidies, further advance the work of cleaning up and standardizing work. At the same time, efforts will be made to consolidate local governments' responsibilities, strengthen supervision and management, and address each violation by rectifying it immediately so as to firmly address involution-style competition, the official noted.

Global Times