Survey Shows Wider Rural-Urban Per-capita Income Gap

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Survey Shows Wider Rural-Urban Per-capita Income Gap

The per-capita income ratio between Chinese urban residents and rural dwellers in year 2002 expanded from 2.89:1 to 3.11:1 with the income gap turned out wider.

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Last year, the per-capita income ratio between Chinese urban residents and rural dwellers expanded from 2.89:1 to 3.11:1 with the income gap turned out wider. So, the importance as played by the Chinese rural areas is diminishing in China's national consumer market. According to an official report from the People's Daily, the recently issued Rural Economy Green Paper (2002-2003 Chinese Rural Economy Situation Analysis and Prediction) puts forward warnings of suchlike.

Rural Economy Green Paper is an annual analytic report on the running, development and forecast of rural economy brought out jointly by Rural Development Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and General Detachment for Rural Economy and Social Survey. The Green Paper of this year is the 11th edition of its kind.

The Green Paper describes some main characteristics on the running of rural economy in 2002. The restructure of agro-industrial structure keeps on going with some result, the ratio of high quality agricultural products improved. In a situation in which prices of main agricultural products were on the whole still at a low ebb, the added value of agriculture grew by 2.9 percent as compared with that of 2001, and the growth rate was also higher than that in 2001. The proportion as accounted for by rural economy in the national economy was on the decrease. In 2002, the GDP contributed by all rural departments occupied 49.2 percent, a drop of 0.7 percentage points from that of 2001 with the contributing ratio provided by rural departments to indicate 40.9 percent, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points off that of 2001. The growing speed of peasants�� income went on mending, but the growth was slow. The wage of labor proved still the main source for peasants' revenue.

According to the analysis of some specialists, the retailing turnover of consumer goods in the whole society exceeded RMB 4 trillion yuan, a rise of 8.8 percent over that of 2001. In county-level areas and those below the county-level, the sales grew by 6.8 percent, far behind the growing speed of 10 percent in the urban areas. In the county-level areas and areas below that, the total sales value accounted only for 36.7 percent of the total, a drop of 0.7 percentage points from that of 2001. The basic reason that the consumption is not very thriving in rural areas and the consumption market there hard to start up is because of the low income for peasants and the slow growing speed.

Last year saw the per-capita income ratio between Chinese urban residents and rural inhabitants expanded on average from 2.89:1 to 3.11:1 with the income gap becoming wider. Influenced by this, the growth of market consumption in rural areas will accordingly be slower than that of urban areas.

By PD Online Staff Liu Wei

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