Tax revenue reached 5.4 trillion yuan (790 billion dollars) in 2008, up 18.8 percent from the previous year, the finance ministry said in a statement.

But growth in the first half was 33.5 percent, and just 3.2 percent in the final six months of the year, according to the ministry.

Revenues started to fall in October, dropping by 0.5 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.

The slump widened to 11 percent and 11.9 percent in November and December respectively.

"Impacted by the international financial crisis... the growth rate of economic indexes that are relevant to major tax categories, such as industrial output, corporate profit and trade, slowed down month by month," it said.

China's economy grew by 9.0 percent in 2008, slipping back into single digits for the first time in six years, with the final-quarter performance just 6.8 percent.

Policies aimed at boosting economic growth, such as hikes in export tax rebates and the scrapping of taxes on share purchases, were other reasons for the revenue slowdown, it said.

The full year growth rate in 2008 was down from 33.7 percent in 2007.

But the ministry pointed out that 2008 growth was roughly equivalent to levels seen in the three years from 2004 and was slightly higher than increases in 2002 and 2003.

Auto consumption tax grew 10.7 percent last year, compared with 27.9-percent growth in 2007, as consumers held back from buying due to stock market losses, rising costs and a pessimistic economic outlook amid the global crisis, it added.

China's auto sales growth hit a 10-year low last year, rising just 7.3 percent from a year earlier to 6.8 million units, official data showed.

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