What to do with a budget surplus is vexing the Chinese government. This year's total budget was about one trillion US dollars. At the end of November, 300 billion was leftover.

Officials are now concerned provincial and central government departments will embark on poorly thought out attempts to spend the remaining money for fear of their budgets being cut next year.

China's finance minister has warned governments at all levels to tighten spending to avoid a rush on things like luxury offices, expensive government cars, or even disbursing generous year-end bonuses to staff.