Cap urged on fat-cat SOE salaries
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-07-12 08:22
Incomes of employees in profitable monopoly sectors who earn up to 10
times the national average should be capped to reduce the widening wealth
gap, researchers at a leading think-tank urged yesterday.
The central
government should do away with the right to profit redistribution at State-owned
enterprises (SOEs), a team of experts affiliated to the Ministry of Labour and
Social Security suggested.
"Capping their income, annulling profit
redistribution rights and transparent auditing and supervision are a package of
measures we have come up with," Liu Junsheng, a researcher with the ministry's
Labour-Wage Institute, told China Daily.
"These measures could reduce the
income gap between workers in monopoly sectors and average employees to a
reasonable level."
He suggested that the gap should not be more than
fivefold, but statistics show that the real income of people working in
profitable sectors is 7-10 times higher than in other industries.
Bu
Zhengfa, vice-labour minister, recently lashed out at the high salaries in the
electricity, telecommunication, finance, insurance, tobacco and other monopoly
industries.
The 169 major State-owned enterprises made a profit of
627.65 billion yuan (US$78.45 billion) last year, with the top 40 firms
contributing 95 per cent and the top 12 accounting for 79 per cent.
At
the 12 most profitable SOEs, the average cost per head was about 70,000
yuan (US$8,700) in 2005; and the figure was about 123,000 yuan (US$15,400) at
China Mobile, which had 112,000 employees in 2004.
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