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starting from mid-2023, the term "smash everything" began to appear frequently in meetings and documents of many local governments. in local practice, the term refers to using various methods to revitalize the state-owned "three assets" (funds, assets, and resources), reduce debt ratios, and improve the quality and efficiency of fiscal expenditures.

author: du tao

cover image: oriental ic

introduction

one|| the "selling all the pots and pans" approach to revitalizing the state-owned "three assets" is, on the one hand, intended to ease local financial resources and make up for funding shortages, which is essentially the implementation of the central government's spirit of living a tight life; on the other hand, it is a means to actively promote local fiscal management reforms to improve quality and efficiency.

2|| in local practice, "selling everything" on the one hand points to improving the quality and efficiency of fiscal spending, but its more important connotation is the revitalization of the state-owned "three assets".

on august 28, a notice entitled "the office of the people's government of bishan district, chongqing on the establishment of a special working group for "selling everything" in bishan district, chongqing" attracted market attention. the notice was headed "the office of the people's government of bishan district, chongqing (bishan government office [2024] no. 26)". on the same day, some media verified with the staff of the finance bureau of bishan district that the special working group for "selling everything" had already started.

the notice shows that the special team was established in accordance with the relevant requirements of the "work plan for promoting the activation of state-owned assets in bishan district, chongqing" and was established after research by the district government. the team leader is tian zhong, member of the standing committee of the bishan district committee and executive deputy district mayor, and the deputy team leaders are hou yongmei, director of the district finance bureau, and han yan, director of the district state-owned assets center.

the bishan district mentioned in the notice has better fiscal quality and debt situation than other districts and counties in chongqing in 2023. according to the statistics in the research report of the development research center of gf securities, the fiscal self-sufficiency rate of bishan district will reach 70% in 2023, second only to jiangbei district; the municipal investment debt ratio and government debt ratio of bishan district in 2023 are also at a relatively low level among all districts and counties in chongqing. in 2023, the general public budget revenue of bishan district will reach 5.319 billion yuan, an increase of 22.1%.

another document, "strictly implementing the requirement of selling everything" issued by delingha city, qinghai province, has also attracted widespread attention from the market. on the morning of august 28, economic observer found the document on the official website of the government of delingha city, qinghai province. the official website shows that the document was issued on august 1. however, on the afternoon of august 28, the document could no longer be found.

economic observer found that the term "smashing all the pots and pans" began to appear frequently in meetings and documents of many local governments starting in mid-2023. in local practice, the term refers to using various methods to revitalize the state-owned "three assets" (funds, assets, and resources), reduce debt ratios, and improve the quality and efficiency of fiscal expenditures.

yuan haixia, president of china chengxin international research institute, told economic observer that the emergence of local "smashing pots and selling iron" special teams is a vivid reflection of the pressure faced by some places in the process of economic recovery under pressure and the control of growth, accumulation and debt reduction. on the one hand, since the beginning of this year, fiscal revenue has continued to be under pressure due to multiple factors such as the weakening momentum of economic recovery, the continuous adjustment of the real estate market and the sluggish land market. in the first seven months of this year, the national general public budget revenue decreased by 2.6% year-on-year, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, and the decline in government fund budget revenue further expanded to -18.5%. the progress of the broad fiscal revenue to complete the budget was only 53.9%, which was at a historically low level. in the first half of this year, the fiscal balance rate of 14 provinces further declined.

on the other hand, while fiscal revenue growth is limited, local governments are facing greater pressure on expenditure and debt resolution. rigid expenditures in areas such as social security and people's livelihood remain unchanged, and local governments continue to face pressure to resolve debt.

yuan haixia believes that while "selling everything" reflects the local government's initiative to resolve debt, it also reveals a sense of helplessness. debt reduction does not mean zero debt, but is to maintain the sustainability of finance, economy and debt, and the most important thing is to maintain the continuity and rolling of debt. therefore, from this perspective, "selling everything" is not the optimal solution to debt. local governments should classify and dispose of debts, revitalize existing assets, and do a good job of incremental management on the basis of understanding their financial situation and sorting out their balance sheets.

"selling everything you have"

since mid-2023, local governments in many places have mentioned the term "selling everything they have" in meetings and documents.

on august 25, 2023, cui jingying, deputy secretary of the wuhai municipal party committee and mayor, presided over the 20th executive meeting of the wuhai municipal government in 2023 and the meeting of the leading group for optimizing the business environment. the meeting pointed out that it is necessary to resolutely prevent and resolve government debt risks, "sell everything" to pay off debts, solidly promote increasing revenue and reducing expenditure, and firmly hold the bottom line of no systemic risks.

majiang county, guizhou province, also mentioned in its 2024 county government work report that "we must make good use of the 'package' of debt-reduction measures, 'sell everything we have' to raise debt-reduction funds, and orderly advance government debt resolution work."

in the reports on the implementation of the 2023 budget and the draft budget for 2024, shapingba district of chongqing mentioned that it would carry out special asset disposal actions of "smashing pots and selling iron" and "cutting off one's arm", dig deep into stock asset resources, and effectively revitalize state-owned housing assets, equity debts, land resources, etc. actively connect with professional asset management companies and municipal state-owned enterprises, broaden the path of asset revitalization, implement 102 asset disposals, realize 940 million yuan, and complete 6 equity transfers and pledges for an amount of 790 million yuan. reasonably adjust the planning use and development intensity of idle and inefficient land, enrich land functions, and improve land benefits. increase the frequency of land transfer scheduling, get through the difficulties, bottlenecks, and card points in each link, steadily promote the revitalization and realization of land resources, and realize land transfer income of 1.01 billion yuan.

on may 11, 2024, yang fengxiang, the mayor of quangang district government of quanzhou city, presided over the 37th executive meeting of the district government. the meeting studied the plan of quangang district to "sell everything" to dispose of assets and resolve debt risks, and proposed measures such as strengthening budget management and insisting on living a tight life.

the above-mentioned "strict implementation plan of the requirements of "selling all the things"" issued by the office of the people's government of delingha city proposes to effectively use limited funds on the cutting edge, invest in critical areas, and spend them effectively, raise awareness, sell all the things, and get through the difficulties; find out the family's assets, carefully check and compare; find the right methods and speed up the disposal. through self-use, sharing, adjustment, leasing, disposal and other methods, further tap the potential of existing assets and resources, improve the use efficiency of "three capitals", and provide strong financial support for promoting the high-quality economic and social development of the city.

a local finance official told economic observer:the "selling all the pots and pans" approach to revitalizing the state-owned "three assets" is, on the one hand, intended to ease local financial resources and make up for funding shortages, which is essentially the implementation of the central government's spirit of living a tight life; on the other hand, it is a means to actively promote local fiscal management reforms to improve quality and efficiency.however, when "selling everything" is used in specific measures of the first-level government, especially in documents released to the outside world, it is inevitable that it will be suspected of being a gimmick. in particular, as a public service department, releasing it to the public will inevitably cause panic among the masses and local investors, and there are certain risks in controlling public opinion.

the person believes that the current local finances are tight, and different localities are also taking different measures to revitalize the "three capitals", which is also an important task of the financial management reform of the financial department. at the government level, it is nothing more than mobilizing the enthusiasm of various departments to participate and implement, and issuing documents is to better divide the work, clarify and implement the work.

who is the pot and who is the iron?

the notice from bishan district mentioned that the establishment of the "selling everything" special team was based on the "work plan for promoting the activation of state-owned assets in bishan district, chongqing."

revitalizing state-owned assets is an important task for all districts and counties in chongqing in 2024. at the beginning of 2024, the main leaders of the party and government of all districts and counties in chongqing and the main leaders of municipal state-owned enterprises signed the "2024 annual "three tough battles and one revitalization" reform breakthrough target responsibility letter" and the "2024 annual winning the state-owned enterprise reform tough battle target responsibility letter" with the municipal government, respectively, and set up a "military order" to reform and tackle tough problems. among them, the "three tough battles" are state-owned enterprise reform, park development zone reform, and government-enterprise separation reform. "one revitalization" refers to revitalizing state-owned assets. in the first half of 2024, chongqing completed the revitalization of 84.82 billion yuan of assets.

an article on the official website of the bishan district people's congress standing committee shows that under the promotion of the district people's congress standing committee, bishan district has now established a "3+6+n" system "one network": "3" refers to the three major work priorities of "stopping losses and curing losses", "slimming and strengthening the body", and "improving efficiency and increasing capacity"; "6" refers to the "one enterprise, one policy" for the six key state-owned enterprises in the district; "n" refers to the "one enterprise, one policy" plan for reducing losses and turning losses into profits for 42 loss-making enterprises, as well as the "one industry, one policy" plan for revitalizing state-owned assets of 46 enterprises and three special plans for debt repayment.

at the bishan district economic operation dispatch meeting for the first half of 2024 and the regular meeting of the "top leaders" of towns, streets and departments held on august 21, qin wenmin, secretary of the bishan district committee, also mentioned that "it is necessary to effectively revitalize the 'three assets', activate the economic benefits of existing resources, increase the disposal and realization of idle assets, and do everything possible to increase the capital payment rate."

according to the above notice, the working group of bishan district has an office under the district finance bureau, which is responsible for the daily work of the working group. at the same time, one person will be transferred from the district finance bureau, district state-owned assets center, district taxation bureau, district audit bureau and other units to work in the working group office. in principle, the transferred personnel will be separated from their original work during the transfer period and will be responsible for the "smashing pots and selling irons" work. the working group is responsible for the "smashing pots and selling irons" work of the whole district, including formulating work plans, clarifying the scope of implementation, determining asset packages, establishing price determination mechanisms, improving reward and punishment measures, promoting project implementation, carrying out policy publicity, and other work related to "smashing pots and selling irons".

in local practice, "selling everything" on the one hand points to improving the quality and efficiency of fiscal spending, but its more important connotation is the revitalization of the state-owned "three assets".

the above-mentioned notice of delingha city lists a number of specific measures in detail: first, strengthen the management of state-owned assets, second, optimize the structure of fiscal expenditure, third, strengthen the constraints on budget execution, fourth, strictly manage general expenditures, fifth, strictly control the "three public" expenses, sixth, strictly control the construction of buildings and venues, seventh, strictly manage government procurement, eighth, strictly issue allowances and subsidies, ninth, strengthen the control of temporary employees, tenth, strengthen the financial management of units, and eleventh, prevent and resolve debt risks.

in march 2024, the audit bureau of nan'an district, chongqing city, proposed in the pre-audit investigation of the special audit on the quality and efficiency of jiulongpo district's fiscal operations and the reform of the industrial park that it would focus on the progress of the work of "selling all the pots and pans" to revitalize assets, pay special attention to the revitalization of new (existing) parking spaces, garbage disposal sites and other assets, and conduct in-depth on-site verification of the number of assets, asset status, asset operations, etc., to ensure that fiscal revenue is real and high-quality and efficient.

the activation of state-owned revenue belongs to the non-tax revenue of fiscal revenue. the results of local efforts to "sell off all the resources" are also reflected in the fiscal data for the first half of the year.

data from the ministry of finance shows that national tax revenue from january to july 2024 was 11,124.0 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.4%; non-tax revenue was 2,442.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12%.

the jiangsu provincial department of finance stated that non-tax revenue increased by 33.1% in the first half of the year, mainly due to the various regions' multi-channel efforts to mobilize resources and assets, tap potential to increase revenue, and strive to make up for the gap in tax revenue reduction, thereby achieving a steady increase in fiscal revenue.

the jilin provincial department of finance stated that non-tax revenue achieved a relatively high growth in the first half of the year. on the one hand, the income from the paid use of state-owned resources (assets) reached 10.17 billion yuan, an increase of 50%. this was mainly due to the comprehensive asset investigation campaign carried out in various places, scientifically formulated revitalization plans, and increased the driving force of resource asset disposal. on the other hand, the fines and confiscations revenue reached 3.15 billion yuan, an increase of 54.1%. the growth came from the centralized payment of fines and confiscations from major public security cases and discipline inspection and supervision cases.

(the data in this article are from the economic observer article "behind the rise of non-tax revenue in many places")

a local finance department head told economic observer that in the first half of 2024, the non-tax revenue of most counties and cities in his region achieved varying degrees of year-on-year growth, with the main growth points concentrated in: first, the increase in "state-owned capital operating income - mining rights occupation fee income, mining rights transfer income"; second, the increase in "income from the paid use of state-owned resources (assets) - income from the paid use of other state-owned resources (assets)"; third, the implementation of the "big finance" policy spirit, intensified the revitalization of the "three assets", and ensured that the income from the paid use of state-owned resources (assets) was deposited in a timely manner.