Beijing to issue Gini Coefficient measuring income gap

INTRO

After China's released its official Gini coefficient last week, the capital, Beijing says it will release its own Gini coefficient for 2012 soon - the first city in the country, to do so.

The Gini coefficient, or Gini index, is used to measure income inequality, with a figure of 0 representing equality and 1 inequality.

A spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics Beijing branch said China's statistics departments used to publish two indexes to reflect income distribution: (

One measuring per capita disposable income of urban residents; the other reflecting per capita net incomes of rural residents.

Beijing will now carry out unified investigation into the incomes of both urban and rural residents - and publish this, as soon as possible...

Which will make it the first city in the country, to issue a city Gini coefficient.

Living standards in the Chinese capital today, are far from equal.

Luxury cars and stores line the streets in the city's centre... While those living in the outskirts, can barely afford to live.

Food prices have shot up by an average of more than 4 percent a year in major cities, squeezing residents everyday:

While property prices have soared from steep, to unaffordable...

Official data shows average home prices in Beijing were about 3,500 U.S. dollars per square meters last November... A more than 5 percent jump from the month before...

Making it harder for the masses, to move up in life...

According to government data, Beijing residents' per capita disposable income in 2012 was about 5,800 dollars a year.

While per capita net incomes of rural residents was roughly 2,600 dollars... Revealing a burgeoning gap between city dwellers, and farmers.

After tracking several years of mild improvements in income distribution since 2008, the government released China's official index for 2012, last Friday...

It revealed the country's Gini coefficient had reached 0.474 - flying far above the warning level of 0.4 set by the United Nations...

And making it the world's most unequal country, according to the UN Development Program... Followed by Singapore and the United States.

A ranking that has highlighted the urgency of income distribution reform... to close the gap, in the world's most populous country.