Need to narrow income gap

The key issue for China now is to focus on implementing bold, comprehensive reforms to rebalance wealth distribution

According to the 2011 Forbes Billionaires List, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), contributed 108 of the 214 new billionaires and accounted for one in four of the total number, a jump from one in ten five years ago. The number of Chinese billionaires on the list nearly doubled.

In striking contrast, China still has about 150 million people living on less than one US dollar per person per day and more than 60 percent of urban residents cannot afford an apartment. China's Gini coefficient, a key indicator of inequality, reached a record high of 0.49 in 2006 and has been hovering around 0.5 in recent years, surpassing the "warning line". Many people believe that the income gap is actually far larger than the official figures suggest.