Drop in China's per-capita disposable income narrows in Q2

After deducting price factors, China's per-capita disposable income stood at 15,666 yuan ($2,192.75), narrowing 2.6 percentage points compared with the first quarter, Yicai.com reported on Sunday, sourcing data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Data showed in the first half of the year, 10 provincial-level regions saw their per-capita disposable income above the national average, namely Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Guangdong, Fujian, Liaoning, Shandong and Chongqing. Eight of the 10 regions are along the east coast, one is in western China and another is in the northeast.

Shanghai, with a per-capita disposable income of 36,577 yuan and Beijing, with 34,573 yuan, are the two regions with the most advanced modern service industries. They saw the highest concentration in terms of industries such as information transmission, software and IT technical services, finance, scientific research and technical services in the country. These industries carry the highest incomes in recent years in China.

From the perspective of disposable income increases, a total of 28 provincial-level regions achieved growth in nominal terms in the first half of the year. Tibet, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Hunan, Chongqing, Qinghai, Gansu, Anhui and Yunnan were the top 10 regions with the highest growth rates, and are mostly in Central and West China.

Ding Changfa, associate professor of the Economics Department of Xiamen University, said there were several reasons the central and western areas grew faster in terms of income: Firstly, incomes in these regions are relatively low, so catch-up effects are more significant. Secondly, in many western areas, populations are sparse and less affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Thirdly, wage earners in these areas are mainly local people, so the resumption of work is faster on a relative basis.

Looking at the bottom of the list for disposable income increase rates, with the exception of hard-hit Hubei province, provincial-level regions with relatively lower growth rates were mostly in North and Northeast China including Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Northeast provinces. Among these, Tianjin and Heilongjiang saw reduction in per-capita disposable incomes. It was largely because in these areas heavy chemical industries, which have seen a lot of downward pressure in recent years, claim a large share in local industry structures.