Binh Duong overtakes major cities, tops per capita income

By Quynh Trang May 22, 2021 | 09:36 pm PT

Aerial view of an industrial park in Binh Duong's Tan Huyen District, March 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Nhu Quynh.

Binh Duong Province has the highest per capita monthly income in Vietnam at more than VND7 million ($302.73), according to the General Statistics Office.

A 2020 living standards survey that covered around 47,000 families in 63 cities and provinces found the southern province’s per capita income was higher than HCMC's (VND6.54 million) and Hanoi's (VND5.98 million).

Other localities with monthly per capita incomes of over VND5 million include Dong Nai, Bac Ninh, Da Nang, Hai Phong and Can Tho.

The national average is VND4.23 million, down two percent from 2019. Over the 2016-2020 five year period, however, per capita income increased by around 8 percent.

The monthly per capita income in urban areas is around VND5.54 million, about 1.6 times higher than that in rural areas (VND3.48 million).

The richest segment of the population (the top 20 percent) has an average monthly per capita income of around VND9.1 million, about eight times higher than that of the poorest (bottom 20 percent).

The monthly expenditure of households also increased in 2020 at VND2.89 million per person, a 13 percent increase over 2018.

But the rate of increase from 2018 to 2020 was lower than from 2016 to 2018 (18 percent), indicating the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the pandemic, the number of poor families has continued to decrease because of social security policies, the GSO says. Policymakers however still need to address the wealth discrepancies between urban and rural areas, as well as between the richest and poorest segments of the population, it added.