Chinanews, Beijing, Nov. 24 – On Wednesday, the National Statistics Bureau released a set of figures showing that Beijingers’ per capita income in October ranked first in the country. The news was then frequently quoted by various media. However, some experts voice a different opinion regarding the figure, the Beijing Evening News reported.

 

An expert from the city investigation team of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics told our reporter that people should keep a cool head in viewing this figure. First, some accidental factors are involved in it. Judging from the accumulative per capita income, Beijing still lags behind cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou. Beijingers’ per capita disposable income, the most effective criterion to gauge people’s income conditions, also falls behind people in Shanghai.

 

Some other experts raise their doubts about the figure, saying that although in Beijing, people’s average income is higher than before, their disposable income level is not satisfactory. At present, many people in the capital suffer from the enormous burden of housing expenditure and their current disposable income can hardly meet their need of buying a house. This, coupled with problems such as the gap between the rich and poor, the large income disparity between city and rural residents, as well as expensive medical services, pension costs, and education spending, makes for a relatively low life quality of the local people.

 

The lastest figure from the National Statistics Bureau shows that in October, the per capita income for people living in rural and urban areas across the country was 1,058.89 yuan. Beijing ranks first in this category, with the per capita income reaching 1,878.32 yuan, followed by Shanghai, where people’s average income was 9.56 yuan less than that in Beijing.