East China's Zhejiang province slashed taxes and fees by 204.25 billion yuan ($31.42 billion) in the first nine months of this year, benefiting nearly 40 million enterprises, according to statistics recently released by the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance.

The exempted amount was among the highest in provincial areas during the nine-month period.

Zhejiang has become the first place in the nation to stop collecting water conservancy construction funds. The policy is expected to reduce the financial burden of local enterprises by 90 billion yuan during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.

Zhejiang is also the first place in the country where procedures related to tax and fee refunds can be handled online.

The industries of manufacturing, wholesale and retail, as well as information transmission, software and information technology services were the top three beneficiaries of the preferential policies rolled out by Zhejiang to relieve burdens on enterprises.

The tax and fee cuts from January to September for the three industries totaled 92.06 billion yuan, 29.57 billion yuan and 25.99 billion yuan respectively.

Small and micro-sized companies from Zhejiang have also benefited. In the first half of this year, tax cuts for small and micro-sized companies totaled 34.952 billion yuan and accounted for 18.9 percent of the province's total.

Tax and fee cuts have bolstered the stable recovery of tax revenue.

In the first quarters of this year, Zhejiang's tax revenue reached 619.594 billion yuan, rising 19.4 percent on a yearly basis and 10.5 percent on a two-year average basis.