The Chinese government took less than a month to implement its decision to deliver 2 trillion yuan ($288.8 billion) in fiscal funds to hundreds of prefecture-and county-level governments. Photo/Sipa

　　To mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the economy, the Chinese government took less than a month to implement its decision to deliver 2 trillion yuan ($288.8 billion) in fiscal funds to hundreds of prefecture-and county-level governments.

　　The "superfast" policy implementation has captured the imagination of policymakers worldwide. The policy aims to protect the most-affected people and firms from income losses, unemployment, and bankruptcies.

　　My eight-day trip to report on this amazing story took me to local government departments, companies and households in three cities-Chongqing, Shenzhen in Guangdong province and Changsha in Hunan. People shared stories about the impact of the health crisis on economic output and public finance.

　　"It's really an unprecedented test for the fiscal sustainability of governments at all levels," said Wang Yinchuan, an official with the finance bureau in Chongqing.

　　There's no doubt fiscal tools have taken on a prime role in the national effort to mitigate the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ministry of Finance has already taken 87 measures since the outbreak. These include acceleration of unemployment insurance disbursement to support households, temporary tax relief, and deferral of tax payments for businesses in affected sectors and regions.

　　The Chinese government's responses have been swift, and faster than comparable ones in many advanced economies. But the biggest challenge is how to fairly and effectively relocate the fiscal resources to local governments in different regions, depending on their special economic situation, an official told me in Changsha, Hunan province.

　　For the fiscal stimulus package, policymakers pledged to spend money on people's basic well-being, to only increase, and not cut, the amount, and ensure adequate spending in key areas while resolutely cutting general expenditure.

　　They reiterate that construction of new government buildings and wasteful and excessive spending will be strictly prohibited.

　　"When we were making the annual budget, we cut the general operational expenditure by 20 percent this year, to save the money for more urgent usage," said Wang Chunlin, head of the finance department of the Ningxiang local government in Hunan province.

　　When I visited Sanyang, a town near Changsha, I saw the office building of the township government had been destroyed by heavy rain several days earlier. But the budget is not sufficient to reconstruct the building, so the staff work from three different places now, and will continue to do so until the necessary fiscal funding becomes available to build a new government building.

　　"It's truly difficult this year, but I believe the government's income will increase after the economy returns to normal, and then we will be able to build a new workplace," said Li Junjie, township head of Sanyang.

　　But that is not the end of the story. In the coming years, governments at all levels may face difficulties in balancing income and expenditure. A stiffer challenge is how to repay the debt, or how to redeem the bonds through which money was borrowed during the pandemic.

　　All these troubling questions will be addressed in the years to come. Right now, though, China is trying to find innovative or novel fiscal resources to expand policy space, to provide significant additional support for the economic recovery, and to reorient the economy toward a higher-quality growth path.

　　中国政府用了不到一个月的时间实施了向数百个地级和县级政府提供2万亿元人民币（合2888亿美元）财政资金的决定。图片/ Sipa

　　为了减轻新冠肺炎疫情对经济的影响，中国政府用了不到一个月的时间实施了向数百个地级和县级政府提供2万亿元人民币（合2888亿美元）财政资金的决定。

　　中国政府该政策的“超快速”实施吸引了全球决策者的关注。此项政策旨在保护受疫情影响最大的个人和企业免受收入损失、失业和破产的影响。

　　在为期八天的采访当中，我有幸拜访了三个城市（重庆、广东深圳和湖南长沙）的地方政府、企业和当地的居民，人们和我分享了有关这次健康危机对经济产出和公共财政造成的影响的故事。

　　重庆市财政局官员王银川说：“这对于各级政府的财政可持续性确实是前所未有的考验。”

　　毫无疑问，在国家着力减轻新冠肺炎疫情带来的不利影响时，财政工具已经发挥了主要作用。自疫情爆发以来，财政部已采取了87项措施。这些措施包括加速失业保险金的发放、阶段性税收减免以及推迟向受影响的部门和地区的企业征收税款。

　　“中国政府的反应是迅速的，并且比许多发达国家的反应更快”，一位湖南长沙的官员告诉我，“但是最大的挑战是如何根据地方的特殊经济状况将财政资源公平有效地分配给不同地区的地方政府”。

　　对于财政刺激政策，政府承诺将把钱花在改善人们的基本福祉上，只增加而不是削减其数额，在坚决削减总支出的同时，确保在关键领域有足够的支出。

　　他们还重申，严格禁止建造新的政府大楼，严禁铺张浪费和过多的支出。

　　湖南省宁乡市财政局负责人王春林说：“在制定年度预算时，我们今年将一般业务支出削减了20%，以节省资金以备不时之需。”

　　在拜访离长沙不远的平江县三阳乡时，我看到了几个月前因大雨而被摧毁的乡政府办公楼的废墟。但是由于政府过紧日子要求，当地政府选择不重建办公大楼，因此工作人员现在在三个不同的地方办公，并且这种状况将一直持续，直到地方政府财力状况好转为止。

　　三阳乡负责人李俊杰说：“今年确实非常困难，但是我相信，在经济恢复正常之后，政府的收入将会增加，之后我们将根据实际情况考虑是否重建一个新的工作场所。”

　　但这还不是故事的结局。未来几年，各级政府可能在收支平衡上面临困难。更大的挑战是如何偿还债务，或者如何赎回在新冠肺炎疫情期间为实现融资而发行的债券。

　　所有这些令人困扰的问题将在未来几年内得到解决。不过，目前，中国正试图寻找创新的财政资源来扩大政策空间，为经济复苏提供重要的额外支持，并使经济朝着更高质量的增长道路发展。

　　原文链接：https://enapp.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202008/24/AP5f4312fda3109daf6c776dd9.html