Xiao Fu/Shanghai Daily news

Earnings from private businesses and investments are playing an increasingly larger part in urban residents' total income in the Yangtze River Delta region, a new report shows.
In the first half of the year, regional per-capita net income from private business operations jumped 45.4 percent year-on-year to 541 yuan (US$66.79), or 6.2 percent of total income, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said in a report.
The analyses covered 15 cities in the region, which encompasses Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and Shanghai.
The business earnings over the first six months compared with 738 yuan, or 5.1 percent of total earnings, for all of last year, and 564 yuan and 4.5 percent for 2003.
City dwellers in Zhejiang outperformed those in Shanghai and Jiangsu with per-capita business income of 934 yuan in 2004.
Many of the first people to become involved in private business were from coastal cities in Zhejiang such as Wenzhou and Taizhou.
Investment return, including earnings from securities and property sales and rentals, also jumped, rising nearly 50 percent in 2004 from the previous year to 334 yuan per person.
"Returns from real estate investment have become a major means for increasing household income in the past three years, as more and more families now own multiple apartments," the bureau said in its report.
Salary income is still the main source of income, accounting for 66 percent of the total. Urban wage income averaged 9,469 yuan per person in the region in 2004, up 13.9 percent from 2003.