Urban Chinese workers earned an average of 21,001 yuan in 2006, a 14.1 percent increase from 18,405 yuan in 2005, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
   
The disposable per capita income of urban Chinese rose 12.1 percent year on year to 759 yuan in 2006, an increase of 10.4 percent after inflation, for a growth rate that was a 0.8 percentage point higher than the previous year.
   
The increases were partly due to pay raises in some government departments and non-profit institutions, experts said.
   
Per capita annual net income of rural households rose by 10.2 percent year on year to 3,587 yuan in 2006, up 7.4 percent after inflation and growing at a rate that was a 1.2 percentage point higher than the previous year, it said.
   
Experts attribute the growth of rural incomes to the abolishment of agricultural taxes and state subsidies on rural education.
   
China's economic growth rate reached 10.7 percent in 2006, the fourth year in a row that the country's GDP growth rate exceeded 10 percent. Meanwhile, the consumer price index rose by 1.5 percent, about 0.3 percentage points lower than 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2007)