China Deepens Budget Transparency With Performance Reforms

China’s 96 central government departments have published their 2025 fiscal year final accounts, marking the 16th consecutive year of budget disclosure and signaling a significant shift toward performance-based spending evaluation, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The annual exercise, which began in 2010, has evolved from a basic disclosure of revenue and expenditure figures into a sophisticated transparency mechanism. This year, departments released detailed reports covering department overviews, nine final accounts tables, explanatory notes, and professional terminology. Each department publishes its budget on its official website, with all disclosures simultaneously compiled on the Ministry of Finance’s “Central Budget and Final Accounts Public Platform” for centralized public access.

Performance Evaluation at the Forefront

A defining feature of this year’s disclosure is the heightened emphasis on performance evaluation. A total of 756 project performance self-assessment forms were submitted alongside the central final accounts to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee — an increase of 13 from the previous year’s 743. These self-assessments aim to provide a more comprehensive and intuitive representation of how budget funds have translated into tangible outcomes.

Building on this, the Ministry of Finance selected 55 projects for fiscal key evaluations in 2026, targeting priority areas including consumption stimulation, technological innovation, industrial development, ecological environmental protection, and livelihood security. These evaluations span general public budgets, government fund budgets, and state-owned capital operation budgets, reflecting the broadening scope of fiscal oversight.

Performance evaluation reports submitted to the NPC Standing Committee cover education, science and technology, healthcare, agriculture and rural affairs, water resources, transportation, and culture and tourism sectors. These involve key central departments such as the Ministry of Education, the National Natural Science Foundation, and the National Health Commission.

Expert Perspectives on Transparency Gains

Bai Yanfeng, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, told People’s Daily that promoting the disclosure of performance evaluation results “can force departments to improve the efficiency of fiscal fund utilization, and continuously enhance government credibility and transparency.” He emphasized that linking performance evaluations to budget allocations creates a mechanism for regularly assessing and adjusting spending policies, helping to eliminate inefficient expenditures and reduce fund stagnation.

Wang Dehua, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that departments now provide approximately 100 pages of materials annually. Through centralized disclosure platforms, Wang said the goal of “making budgets visible” has been achieved, and through detailed explanations and multiple performance reports, the foundation for “making them understandable” has been laid. This reflects an institutional shift from a passive attitude of “want me to disclose” to an active posture of “I want to disclose.”

Liu Yi, Director of the Peking University China Fiscal and Tax Research Center, described the 16-year track record of central department final accounts disclosure as “an important measure in advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.”

Austerity Measures and Procurement Transparency

In 2025, central departments implemented strict cost-saving measures across international travel, official receptions, domestic travel, conferences, and exhibitions. The Ministry of Finance has maintained tight controls on government building construction to prevent wasteful spending, while conducting regular tracking assessments of austerity compliance across both central and local governments.

Government procurement data has been publicly disclosed alongside final accounts for the 11th consecutive year since 2016, reinforcing the accountability framework. The National Immigration Administration’s 2025 procurement serves as a notable example: total procurement reached 3.09 billion yuan (approximately $424 million), with 69.6% of contracts awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises. Within that, 81.9% went to small and micro enterprises, demonstrating how government spending is being strategically deployed to support smaller businesses.

Broader Significance and Forward Outlook

The disclosure represents the maturation of China’s budget transparency framework, which has progressed through three distinct phases over 16 years: basic disclosure in the early years, expanded scope with procurement data from 2016, and the current performance-based reform era. The system now operates on a five-year cycle for comprehensive evaluations, with the scope of performance assessment expanding each year.

As China emphasizes fiscal efficiency amid moderate economic growth, the strategic use of government procurement to support SME development and the modernization of governance systems represent important policy priorities. The linkage of performance results to future budget allocation means that central departments will face increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable outcomes from public spending.

With the Ministry of Finance continuing to broaden its performance evaluation framework and the NPC Standing Committee reviewing an ever-expanding portfolio of assessment reports, China’s experiment in results-based budgeting offers a notable case study in how transparency and accountability mechanisms can be deepened within a large bureaucratic system. The coming years will show whether this approach translates into sustained improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure.