Beijing, April 17:

Income disparities between urban and rural residents in China are likely to widen this year despite government efforts to narrow them, state media said today.

“The income gap between rural and urban areas will continue to grow this year,” said Ma Xiaohe, a researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation’s top planning body, according to the China Daily. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the top state-run think tank, predicts per capita income in rural areas will increase about five per cent to $440, the newspaper reported.

No forecast has been made public for the expected increase in urban incomes this year but usually it is several percentage points higher than in the countryside. Last year, rural incomes expanded by 6.2 per cent while urban incomes rose by 9.6 per cent. “The slower increase of wages for migrant workers, to a large extent, hinders rural families’ income growth,” said Ma.

At least 140 million rural dwellers have left their homes to go to the cities in order to perform jobs that the urban workforce consider too dirty or too dangerous but often the pay is very low. A recent survey from the Research Office of the State Council, or Cabinet, said that nearly 30 per cent of migrant workers make less than $62 dollars a month, according to the newspaper.

The dire forecast of the widening income gap between the cities and the countryside comes despite government pledges to do more to improve the farmers’ lot. In its budget for this year, the central government allocated $42 billion to boost spending on its impoverished countryside, a rise of 14.2 per cent from 2005.

However, some critics have said what is really needed to lift growth in rural China is for farmers to be allowed to own and freely trade their land.