The income ratio between urban and rural residents in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province stood at 1.72 in 2021, 0.02 lower than the previous year, official data from the Ningbo municipal bureau of statistics show.

This is the 17th consecutive year the city's urban-rural income gap has narrowed.

Ningbo's overall per capita disposable income increased by 9.1 percent to 65,436 yuan ($10,067) in 2021. Per capita disposable income of urban residents rose to 73,869 yuan, while the figure for rural residents was 42,946 yuan.

In addition, the ratio between the two administrative areas with the highest and lowest per capita disposable income in the city stood at 1.43, retaining the level as the previous year.

The income of impoverished farmers has been growing rapidly. 

In 2021, the per capita disposable income of low-income farmers in the city reached 19,217 yuan, up 15.2 percent year-on-year, 0.4 percentage points higher than the provincial average. 

People's wellbeing continued to improve. In the past year, Ningbo's expenditure on transportation, housing and health increased by 65.8 percent, 42.4 percent and 12.2 percent respectively.

The registered urban unemployment rate in the city stood at 2.31 percent.

The percentage of days with good air quality in its central urban area last year reached 95.1 percent, up by 2.9 percentage points over the previous year.

An official from the Ningbo municipal bureau of statistics said that the continuous decrease in urban-rural income gap will bolster the city's goal to develop itself into a pioneer in Zhejiang's "common prosperity" campaign.