Two salary milestones were reached in the first six months of the year according to government statistics released yesterday.

Residents of the Yangtze River Delta earned an average 8,000 yuan (US$986) in the first six months, while earnings of those in urban Guandong reached 7,000 yuan (US$863).

And a survey of Guangdong residents showed they are optimistic for their earnings in the second half of the year too, the majority saying they believe they will be better off at the end of this year than they were at the same time in 2004.

The rise in average disposable income in the 15 cities of the Yangtze River Delta Shanghai, eight in Jiangsu Province and six in Zhejiang Province represented a 15.3 per cent increase over the first six months of last year.

Shanghainese had the largest disposable average income 9,657 yuan (US$1,163), a 13.4 per cent rise over 2004. In Jiangsu, a 7,085 yuan (US$853) average was up 16.2 per cent. In Zhejiang, it was 8,948 yuan (US$1,054), an increase of 14.7 per cent.

Zhang Zheng, economic researcher at Fudan University, said the employment rate in Shanghai and Zhejiang is higher than that of Jiangsu.

Per-capita average income of Guangdong's urban residents represented a year-on-year increase of about 9 per cent compared with the first half of last year.

(China Daily August 4, 2005)