Nikkei:
Some recent reports claimed the Chinese government has initially projected a growth rate of 6.5 percent for 2017. I would like to ask for your comment on this. If 6.5 percent is a reasonable figure, how should we interpret the background and reasons behind the slight slowdown?
Ning Jizhe:
The expected goal for China's economic growth in 2017 will be discussed and formed in China's two legislative sessions [NPC and CPPCC, to be held in March]. It will not be announced by the National Bureau of Statistics. The bureau only publishes the statistics from the previous year.
China News Service:
In past years, when the annual statistics were published, you would usually publish the Gini coefficient which reflects the national wealth gap. However, this time there's no such index published. Could you reveal that information to us? We have seen that the income gap between urban and rural regions keeps on shrinking, so how about the Gini coefficient?
Ning Jizhe:
In recent years, China's Gini coefficient has been falling, in general. As you can see, from 2012 to 2015, the Gini coefficient calculation for Chinese citizens' income was 0.474, 0.473, 0.469 and 0.462 respectively. The index for 2016 was 0.465, which means a rise of 0.003 from 2015's. However, it doesn't change the overall trend that the Gini coefficient is going down. In the past year, China's urban and rural residents' income gap shrank comparatively speaking: the per capita income of urban households was 2.73 times that of rural households in 2015, while it dropped in 2016 to 2.72. So, why is the Gini index rising? According to our survey, it's mainly because that the growth rate was slowing down in regard to the old-age pension income for some low-income urban residents while, in rural areas, some people made living solely depending on grain production. As the price of grain was falling, their income was reduced. The change is probably due to these two reasons. However, I would stress that the general trend is not changing. And we have increased our efforts in poverty alleviation and relief, as well as speeding up the program of urban and rural integration. The residents' income gap will keep shrinking gradually, this can be anticipated.
Hu Kaihong:
Today's press conference is over. Thank you, Mr. Ning and Mr. Sheng.