Ren Yuling, a State Council advisor, was recently quoted by China Economic Weekly, a magazine owned by the People’s Daily newspaper. Ren refers to the grave income inequalities across the population. In metropolitan areas, the top 20 percent of the population possesses 66.4% of the financial assets, while the bottom 20 percent owns only 1.3%. With the wealth concentrated in a very few, majority of the people are lack of consumption power. This is the fundamental reason for a low domestic personal expenditure, a major target of the 4 trillion yuan government stimulus package.
Source: Voice of America, March 16, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/w2009-03-16-voa54.cfm