Urbanite's wallets fattening faster than China's GDP

BEIJING - As GDP growth slows down in the world's second-largest economy, Chinese urban residents are enjoying rising disposable income, official data has showed.

Figures released by provincial statistics bureaus over the past few days have showed that 28 out of 31 provincial-level regions on the mainland saw faster growth of per capita disposable income in urban areas than GDP expansion in each region in the first three quarters.

Urbanites in northwestern China's Gansu province enjoyed the fastest disposable income increase of 14.69 percent in this period, 1.39 percentage points faster than the province's GDP growth.

Gansu's neighboring Qinghai province, and northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region ranked second and the third in terms of income growth rate.

The income rises in 24 regions ran faster than the average rate nationwide.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics in October, per capita disposable income in urban areas reached 18,427 yuan ($2,930) in the first three quarters across China, up 9.8 percent year on year after adjustment to inflation.

China's GDP expanded 7.7 percent from the previous year in the first three quarters in 2012, a lag of 2.1 percentage points behind the national income growth rate.

Urban per capita disposable income in eight regions towers over the national level, with Shanghai, Beijing, and Zhejiang ranking one, two and three.

Shanghai became the richest, with per capita disposable income standing at 30,205 yuan in the January-September period, making it the only region exceeding 30,000 yuan.

But the income increase rates in eastern regions including Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Tianjin were slower than the national speed partly due to their high income bases.

The income gap between eastern and western regions is still noticeable, the data indicated.

Chinese officials are sometimes blamed for overemphasizing GDP and neglecting the welfare directly concerning people's livelihood.

China recently vowed to double its 2010 per capita income for both urban and rural residents by 2020, on the basis of making the country's development much more balanced, coordinated and sustainable.