China to tackle yawning gap between rich and poor |
11 June 2010
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A picture of the Chinese city, Shenshen.
With four major cities and provinces increasing their
minimum monthly wage to more than RMB1,000 (147 U.S. dollars), China is
restructuring its national income distributions to ensure a more equitable distribution
of income to help create a more stable society.
The government of Shenzhen city in south China's
Guangdong Province announced on Wednesday that the minimum monthly wage in the
country's first special economic zone has been raised to RMB1,100.
Earlier, the governments of the Shanghai Municipality,
Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces also announced they were increasing the
minimum monthly wage to more than RMB1,000.
To decree a minimum monthly wage has been one of the
few options for the Chinese government to intervene in the primary distribution
of the nation's income after the country began its market-oriented economic
reform in the late 1970s.
Further, on the same day that the Shenzhen city
government announced its new minimum monthly wage standard, the State
Administration of Taxation issued a new regulation to strengthen inspection and
supervision of high-income taxpayers.
"These measures have been taken on the same
target, that is, to reverse the current situation of an irrational social wealth
distribution and yawning gap between the rich and poor," Prof. Hu Angang,
a prominent scholar with Tsinghua University, told Xinhua on Thursday.
Source:Xinhua
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