Civil Servant Salary Increase Put Back, Aiding the Poor be Considered First

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 25, 2002

Civil Servant Salary Increase Put Back, Aiding the Poor be Considered First

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According to persons concerned in Beijing, in view of the economic situation the originally planned salary increase for civil servants in the later half of the year so far hasn't been put into practice. The part of financial expenditure will be preferably used to aid the poor in China as decided by Premier Zhu Rongji.

It has seen thrice salary increase for civil servants since 1999

During the period of the two conferences in 1999 Premier Zhu expressed that in a span of three years efforts must be made to double the salary pay of the domestic civil servants in his terms of office. That is to say, the pay for the civil servants would see an annual average increase of 30 percent in three years and this has been carried out for three times since 1999.

Premier Zhu Rongji said at the beginning of the year that the government would be ready to increase the pay once again this year but wouldn't be by a very big margin as did in the past. Xiang Huaicheng, Minister of Finance also revealed the news in last May that the government was ready to increase the pay in July.

The government was originally ready to increase the pay in July.

When the increase of the pay once again for civil servants was revealed it has roused great attention in all walks of life in society. Some economists aired different views about the increase of the pay. Dai Yuanchen, a celebrated economist expressed, "the first time increase of the pay for civil servants I'm for it with both of my hands up, the second time with only one hand while the third time I had my hands down. As to the increase of the pay in 2002, I oppose it with both hands. It requires more than 10 billion yuan to have an increase of the pay. What a great deed by using it to solve the problem of compulsory education in the countryside for it can help reduce the burden of farmers. With this 10 billion yuan all problems for the compulsory education in the countryside can be solved without any difficulty."

40 percent of people oppose to the increase of pay for civil servants

A social investigation report of 2001 brought forward by the boom investigation center of the State Statistic Bureau indicates that over 50 percent of the people are for the pay increase of civil servants while some 40 percent are against it.

According to the report of the Hong Kong media, the original pay increase plan, which is going to be carried out in July, hasn't been put into practice so far. Personage here analyzed that this has something to do with the relatively serious financial situation.

The growth rate of financial revenue this year showed an obvious slowdown as compared to the previous years. From last January to October the increase indicated the lowest in scale as against that of the years gone by. The revenue from the customs tariff, stamp duty of stock exchanges and other taxes that helped bring up the obvious increase of financial revenue in the years past is by no means ideal at all.

In the meanwhile the increase of financial expenditure is impartially high. Though quite some measures have been adopted to put a check on and for economy it has witnessed its increase rate to slow down a little bit in the 3rd quarter of the year. However, as compared with the revenue increase scale and the yearly budget arrangement the increase speed of the national financial expenditure has always been a bit on the faster side.

By People's Daily Online

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