Poor Chinese residents see rapid income growth

Chinese rural residents in poor regions saw their per capita net income surge 13.4 percent year on year to 5,519 yuan (about 897 U.S. dollars) in 2013, official data showed on Monday. The rate of increase was 4.1 percentage points faster than the income growth of all rural residents, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement. The bureau attributed the rapid growth mainly to income from wages, which soared 22.7 percent from a year earlier to 2,269 yuan. An increasing number of people in poor areas were employed outside the agricultural sector, and wage levels rose, the NBS said. Poor areas include 592 key counties for poverty relief efforts and 14 extremely poor areas designated in a national plan for poverty alleviation from 2011 to 2020. Last year, per capita net income of rural residents rose 9.3 percent in real terms to 8,896 yuan, while disposable income of urban residents grew 7 percent to 26,955 yuan.