The income of managers in State-owned enterprises should be publicized regularly and checked by the public, says a signed article in Worker's Daily. The following is an excerpt.

Li Rongrong, chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said the general manager of China State Construction Engineering Corporation, who is suspected of earning an annual income of 2 to 4 million yuan ($270,000 to 540,000), actually has an annual income of only 400,000 yuan ($54,000) before tax. As Li said, at present, the highest annual salary of leaders of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) is 1.18 million yuan ($159,000) before tax, and in the future details of their income will be publicized at an appropriate time. The income of the top management of SOEs has long been the focus of public debate. Many believed they must have extremely high incomes due to the excessive profits reaped by these monopolies. The public is concerned about their income and may have grievances if they have excessively high salaries.

Several issues need to be clarified in this respect. One is whether the public should be concerned about the salaries of SOEs' leaders. Since SOEs are mostly controlled by State-owned shares, they are in fact collectively owned by the people of the nation. The nation hires mangers to run these enterprises. The people undoubtedly have the right to know the salaries of these managers. The second is why the public harbor suspicions over their incomes. The key is that those government bodies involved have never publicized their incomes, which leads to various guesses.

The third is how high their salaries should be. As some believe, many SOEs obtain monopolized profits as a result of advantages endowed by the government. But their managers should not have high salaries as a direct result of this. It's crucial to link the income of these managers with their performance when setting these managers' income standard. What's more, there should be a cap on their incomes, preventing it from being too high. The performance-checking system should be improved so that these leaders may enjoy benefits compatible with their contributions. Their income should also be made public regularly to receive public monitoring.

(China Daily 12/22/2007 page4)