GUANGZHOU: The Guangzhou residents' consumption showed a downturn last year while the distribution of education resources has been uneven, a report by the city's social science academy said.

The report on Guangzhou's social development, which was compiled by Guangzhou Social Science Academy, said the growth of people's income is much lower than that of the GDP last year.

In 2007, the year-on-year growth of Guangzhou's GDP was 14.5 percent. However, the growth of people's average income was just 10.6 percent.

The growth was even lower than the increase of tax revenue, that stands at 13.1 percent.

In the first three quarters of 2007, the personal disposable income (PDI) in Guangzhou was lower than that of Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen.

Guangzhou's PDI was even lower than Dongguan and Lingbo.

Experts said Guangzhou's PDI would even be surpassed by some smaller cities if it still does not make significant increase.

The report said the housing and pork prices have increased most last year.

The price of pork increased by 33.4 percent, and the housing grew by 37.5 percent.

The average price of every square meter of residential house was 8,735 yuan (US$1,284) last year.

Among the 10 districts of Guangzhou, residents in Tianhe district have highest education background, the report said.

More than 28 percent of the residents in the district have college education.

Yuexiu district has about 20 percent residents having college education. In comparison, Nansha district and Luogang district respectively have only 0.52 percent and 0.83 percent college graduates.

According to the report, Tianhe is a hub of financial, software, high-tech and trading companies and more educated people are therefore working in the district.

On the other hand, Nansha and Luogang are newly-developed districts and the residents' level of education is relatively low.

The report also noted that men are generally better educated than women.

The report said the education resources have been unevenly distributed in the city.

For example, 50 percent good middle schools are located in Yuexiu and Liwan districts while there are only a few good middle schools in Nansha and Luogang districts.

(HK Edition 08/04/2008 page1)