Salary rises for foreign firm staff
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-02-18 00:03

Professionals and executives with foreign enterprises in China saw their salaries rise by nearly 7 per cent on average last year, a new survey shows.

The survey, carried out by Hewitt Associate Consulting Corp, covered 800 foreign firms in major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and secondary cities such as Dalian and Suzhou.

Only seven per cent of the firms said salaries had not risen in 2003 and four per cent said salaries would probably remain the same in 2004.

"Such a drastic increase rate is an epitome of foreign enterprises' confidence in investing in China," said Qi Xu, senior consultant for talent and organization of Hewitt.

But it was still lower than India, the Philippines and the Republic of Korea, noted Qi.

Of all the regions, foreign firms in Shanghai boasted the highest salary hikes at 8.3 per cent, while Beijing and Guangzhou saw a rise of 7.5 per cent.

The survey showed the annual per-capita income of a senior executive in a foreign enterprise in China is 645,000 yuan (US$77,700 ) and that of a mid-level executive is 297,000 yuan (US$35,780).

A professional in a foreign firm could earn an annual salary of approximately 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) and a worker or an ordinary employee earns about 36,000 yuan (US$4,340).

"Under the increasing pressure of drawing talent, foreign enterprises in China had to keep the percentage of volatile salary and long-term encouragement rewards in their salary systems," said Qi.

"The growing salaries in foreign enterprises also reflect the soaring direct investment in China," Qi said.

By late January 2004, the number of foreign firms in China amounted to 468,200 with the total contract investment up to US$953.3 billion and actual investment US$505.55 billion.

In 2003, more multinational firms and global research and development centres entered China. More than 20 foreign firms moved their headquarters to Beijing, and over 40 moved to Shanghai.

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