Income distribution reform body established

The State Council, China's cabinet, has approved the establishment of an inter-ministerial joint conference system to coordinate the reforming of income distribution, according to a statement posted on the central government's website on Wednesday.

Led by the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planner, the system also includes the People's Bank of China, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Taxation, and the National Bureau of Statistics.

A total of 21 government bodies are involved in setting up the new regime, which is designed to deepen reforms of the country's income distribution after years of rapid economic growth that have given rise to a widening wealth gap.

The new organ is being granted the power to "monitor, track, assess and review the process of the reforms before reporting to the State Council," Xinhua News Agency reported.

In the latest indication of rising concerns over the country's wealth disparity, a Bloomberg article published on April 29 said the income gap between China's rich and poor has exceeded that of the US and is now among the widest worldwide, citing a report by researchers at the University of Michigan.

Gini coefficient, a common gauge of income inequality, was about 0.55 in China in 2010 compared to a reading of 0.30 in 1980 - a coefficient of 0.5 or higher points to a severe income gap, said the report, which found that the reading in the US stood at 0.45 in 2010.

China's official figures have shown a mild decline in the gauge in recent years, but worries about the nation's income inequality remain barely relieved.

China's Gini coefficient eased to 0.473 last year from 0.474 in 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics announced.

A gauge above 0.4 still signifies that the economy has a lot to do in addressing the income gap issue, according to international standards, Ma Jiantang, head of the bureau, noted while announcing the figures in January.

Sustained efforts in boosting income distribution reform are a must, Ma said.

China's Gini coefficient has been retreating after peaking at 0.491 in 2008, according to the bureau's statistics.

With the income gap concern in mind, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee in November put reform of the nation's income distribution system among the list of the new leadership's across-the-board reform agendas, and the newly established inter-ministerial joint conference system came as a resultant step in pushing forward with the reform.

"We will improve the mechanism for setting and increasing salaries of enterprise employees on a regular basis ... We will strengthen and improve management of executive compensation in Stated-owned enterprises (SOEs)," Premier Li Keqiang said in his annual government work report delivered in March, according to Xinhua.

In addition to efforts to "progressively implement a performance-based salary system in public institutions," the government will "increase both urban and rural incomes in step with economic development," the premier pledged.

In another sign of the central government's striving to address distribution disparity, the Ministry of Finance said on May 6 that the country will raise the ratio of profits handed over by more than 120 SOEs administered by the central government to the country's coffers.