Zhuhai residents found themselves with more spending money in the first three quarters of 2020 despite higher prices for consumables.

Per capita disposable income rose by 6.3 percent year-on-year to 42,091 yuan ($6,284). The increase rate is 2.4 percentage points higher than the national average and 2.1 above that of the province.

The local survey team of the National Bureau of Statistics announced Oct 29 that after deducting price factors, per capita disposable income rose 2.8 percent from the same period last year, returning to growth after a 0.3-percent slump in the first half of this year.

Wanzai Seafood Street [Photo courtesy WeChat account: zhxiangzhou]

Separately, the city's urban per capita disposable income came in at 43,862 yuan ($6,550), up 5.7 percent year-on-year, while income in rural areas reached 24,775 yuan ($3,700), up 6.3 percent year-on-year.

The sample survey results show that Zhuhai's consumer price index (CPI) increased by 3.4 percent from the same period last year. The growth rate placed 8th among nine Pearl River Delta cities, higher only than that of Guangzhou.

The price of food, alcohol, and tobacco recorded a rise of 12.7 percent compared with the same period last year – a major factor in the CPI increase.

Meanwhile, the cost of transport and telecommunication dropped 4.3 percent year-on-year, the largest decrease among eight major categories of commodities and services. For instance, transport fare dropped by 5.2 percent and that of airplane tickets 26.5 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite a temporary recovery after the resumption of inter-provincial travel in July, travel demands and prices have remained low as news spread of sporadic and repeated epidemic resurgences in China.