Rural residents in Shanghai tend to spend more of their income than their urban peers despite their still significant income gap.

The latest statistics show that rural residents spent 87.1 percent of their income last year, 0.8 percentage points higher than the year-earlier level and 13.2 percentage points higher than urban residents expense.

Rural areas also exceeded urban areas in terms of durable consumption goods per 100 households and expenditure in services, the municipal statistical bureau said.

According to the bureau, every 100 rural households in Shanghai possessed 84 air conditioners last year, up 52.7 percent year-on-year, 47 percentage points higher than the growth rate for urbanites.

The 100 families also owned 130 cell phones and 78 water heaters, with the growth rate 3.7 percentage points and 15.9 percentage points, respectively, higher than those for urban dwellers.

Last year rural residents spent 2,359 yuan (US$291) per-capita, or 32.5 percent of their income, on services, 0.2 percentage points higher than their urban peers.

Additionally, computers have become more popular among rural residents. Every 100 families in the city's rural areas own 32 personal computers, with a growth rate 23.4 percentage points higher than that for urban households. Half of the 32 computers were hooked up to the Internet.

However, the gap between rural and urban residents' income remained large in Shanghai.

Last year, rural residents earned 8,342 yuan (US$1,029) per-capita in one year on average, while their urban peers recorded 18,645 yuan (US$2,299) in per-capita income, the statistical bureau added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2006)