BEIJING, Feb. 24 -- Per capita disposable income in China reached 18,311 yuan (2,993 U.S. dollars) in 2013, growing 8.1 percent in real terms, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Monday.

Wang Pingping, in charge of NBS household surveys, told Xinhua that rural and urban data were collected separately before 2013. "Such data helped policy making, but did not show the whole income landscape across the whole nation," Wang said.

Authorities are working to coordinate urban and rural development and improve income distribution. This demands unified data and greater statistical rigor, Wang said.

Apart from the general figure, per capita urban disposable income expanded 7 percent in real terms to 26,955 yuan in 2013, while the rural figure rose 9.3 percent in real terms to 8,896 yuan.

With China's poverty line drawn at 2,300 yuan of annual net income last year, a rural population of 82.49 million were officially poor, a fall of 16.5 million compared to 2012.