From Chinese Press

Income gap has to be narrowed

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-23 09:12

According to a survey, Chinese travelers to France bought 650 million worth of tax-free luxury goods last year. In sharp contrast to the panic buying of luxury goods by Chinese traveling abroad, people in Kunming, Yunnan province, queued up for hours during the May Day holidays to save just 0.2 or 0.3 yuan on a kilogram of vegetables, says an article in People's Daily. Excerpts:

Latest National Bureau of Statistics figures show that a capita income of 19,109 yuan for urban residents and 5,919 yuan for rural residents last year . Families have to pay not only their daily expenditures, but also their education and medical care costs from that income. The little money that they save goes to make their life relatively secure after retirement.

The number of rich people, who have a high consumption level, is very small and that is one of the main reasons for the continuing drop in the consumption ratio.

Though social wealth has been increasing in recent years, the income gap has widened further. According to data, 1 percent of the population holds about 40 percent of the country's financial assets.

Only by increasing the income of ordinary people substantially can domestic consumption be boosted to ensure the sustained development of the national economy.