UN: The Study Times article quotes statistics from the United Nations Development Programme, citing a statistical measure of inequality called the Gini Coefficient, in which zero expresses complete inequality.
• China is 0.45 on the scale, not far from the internationally recognised alarm level of Gini Coefficient 0.4.
• 20 per cent of China's population at the poverty end accounts for only 4.7 per cent of the total income or consumption.
• 20 per cent of China's population at the affluence end accounts for 50 per cent of the total income or consumption.
• China is currently the world's seventh- largest economy, but the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said in a report last week that China would leapfrog Italy, France and Britain to become number three in five years time.
• China is expected to become the world's largest exporter by the beginning of the next decade.
• China's economic growth has averaged 9.5 per cent over the past two decades and most forecasters believe this rapid pace is likely to continue for some time.
• Accountants Ernst & Young forecast that China will be the second-largest luxuries consumer in the world - second only to the US - by 2015.
• Luxuries consumption in China is expected to grow by 20 per cent annually from 2005 to 2008 and reach US$10 billion in 2015, nearly one-third of the world's total luxuries consumption, according to the Ernst & Young report, The New Lap of Luxury.