Premier Zhu Rongji said yesterday the discrepancy between income distribution in China had reached alarming levels and the Government would make closing the income gap a priority.
'According to a 1999 survey the Gini co-efficient [of China] was 0.39, close to the international danger level,' Mr Zhu said after the NPC annual session closed.
The Gini co-efficient measures income equality in a society with zero representing perfect equality.
'The major gap comes from key grain-production areas as farmers in these regions have witnessed a fall in income due to surplus grain production and a fall in grain prices,' he said.
He pledged that boosting farmers' incomes would be a top priority for the Government.
Twenty years of market reform in China has produced not only millionaires but also millions of laid-off workers living at subsistence levels and leaders are becoming alarmed at the increasing number of protests by the unemployed and poor farmers.
'Our reform to adjust the income gap of urban residents has yet to be completed as the reform on state-owned enterprises is not yet finished,' Mr Zhu said.