The, income of urban and rural residents in China's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities grew faster than consumer prices in the first half of this year, people.com.cn reported Thursday.

According to the report, 29 of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities reported that their resident' income grew more than 10 percent from a year ago, while according to statistics released by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, increased by 5.4 percent year-on-year.

"Actually, Chinese residents' real income is higher than statistical results," said Zhu Baoliang, chief economist at the State Information Center.

He Keng, a vice-chairman of the financial and economic affairs committee of the National People's Congress said that China's residents' income kept a year-on-year growth of more than eight percent for years, so there is no doubt that in the first half of the year residents’ income grew faster than CPI.

However, Xiao Feng, chief editorial writer of New Weekly said the income of most people in the wage-earning class and those live on basic pay did not grow. As high-income class pulled up the average income, the statistics look as if all residents' income grew sharply.

Lu Xianxiang, dean of the Institute of Economics of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law told the reporter that the average residents' income only reflected the changes in the total income, but not the detailed structure. It was different from CPI and these two indices could not be simply compared.