The Finance Ministry said that macro-economic recovery, together with administrative reforms, especially in tax payments from last year, had helped boost budget collections.

Office of the Hai Phong Tax Department

The budget collection value during the first quarter this year met 24.8 percent of the annual target.

In March alone, budget collection was estimated to be VND70.3 trillion ($3.32 billion).

The local budget revenue reached VND52.3 trillion ($2.47 billion) in March to boost the total local budget revenue to VND173.19 trillion ($8.19 billion) during the first quarter of this year, equivalent to 27 percent of the year's target and rising by 19.6 percent over the same period last year.

According to the Ministry of Finance, recoveries in production and business activities, coupled with easier access to tax authorities from enterprises and online tax declarations had helped boost tax collections.

In addition, taxation authorities had taken drastic measures to intensify budget collection from the beginning of this year, including regular checks of tax declarations, tightened management of value added tax refunds and preventing smuggling and trade fraud.

The budget collected from crude oil was pegged at about VND4.6 trillion ($217.7 million) in March and VND16.63 trillion ($787 million) during the first three months of this year.

Collection from import and export activities reached VND35.4 trillion ($1.67 billion) during the quarter.

The Ministry of Finance had expected budget collections to meet or even exceed the target this year, which was set at VND911.0 trillion ($43.12 billion).

Last year, State budget revenue had reached VND846.4 trillion ($40.05 billion).