Wealth gap continues to grow in China

China.org.cn, December 23, 2011

China's wealth gap is growing with a marked increase of the country’s wealthy community, according to the latest survey.

The number of families with investable assets of more than 6 million yuan will reach 1.21 million from 1.01 million in 2010, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group and China Construction Bank.

The investable assets owned by wealthy families should reach 27 trillion yuan this year, compared with 23 trillion yuan last year, the study said.

Up to 35 percent of such families live in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangdong Province.

The study was based on surveys among more than 2,100 high-net-worth individuals.

The wealth overseen by asset managers surged 33.7 percent to US$ 8.2 trillion in 2010, compared with the world's average level of 9.2 percent, and is expected to expand at a compound annual rate of 14 percent till 2015.

Families in China with investable assets of more than 50 million yuan are outpacing the less wealthy majority of high-net-worth families.

The richest 10 percent of the urban population earned 8.9 times that of the poorest 10 percent in 2009 compared with 2.9 times in 1985, while the average income of urban residents was 3.3 times that of their rural counterparts in 2009, according to a report published by Science Press.

The Gini coefficient, a key gauge of income inequality, has long passed the warning mark of 0.4 in China and climbed up to 0.48 in 2010. The wealth disparity continues to deteriorate as the rich are only getting richer more quickly.

The wealthiest 10 percent of the urban population enjoyed a 37-fold rise in earnings from 1985 to 2009 while the middle 20 percent and the poorest 10 percent saw their incomes rise 21-fold and 12-fold, respectively.

Surveys showed that civil servants, private enterprise owners and employees are all feeling a sense of inequality in terms of how wealth is distributed in China, the People's Daily said.