Chinese household income continues to grow in Q1

BEIJING - The average per capita income of Chinese households continued to rise in the first quarter of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.

Average per capita household income rose 9.4 percent year on year to 6,087 yuan ($992.3), recording 8.1 percent growth after inflation.

The household income growth rate for 2014 was 8 percent.

Per-capita disposable income for urban people hit 8,572 yuan, up 8.3 percent. The growth rate was 7 percent in real terms.

Disposable income for rural residents stood at 3,279 yuan, up 10 percent. In real terms, it climbed 8.9 percent.

The income gap narrowed with urban residents earning on average 2.61 times more than their rural counterparts, down from a calculation of 2.66 in the same period last year, according to the NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun.

Income growth surpassed gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first three months, which clocked in at 7 percent, down from the 7.3 percent registered in the fourth quarter of 2014.

This still meets the official annual growth target of around 7 percent for 2015.

China created 3.2 million new jobs in urban areas in the first quarter, said Sheng, adding an NBS survey showed that China's urban unemployment rate was "stable" at around 5.1 percent, unchanged from the rate in 2014.

The consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, in the first quarter averaged 1.2 percent, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2009 and lower than the government target of 3 percent, NBS announced Friday.