Financial performance better, staff payment raised in HK

April in Hong Kong may be considered a harvest month by many staff in financial industry, for most of them will get a bonus because of better financial performance of 2005.

According to news from Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the de facto central bank of Hong Kong, their 600 staff will receive an average 4.2 percent pay rise and 2.4 times of one month salary for bonus, the first time since 2001.

The pay of Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, the chief executive of HKMA, will remain the same at his own request. However, his payment at about 9 million HK dollars (1.2 million U.S. dollars ) is the second highest in Hong Kong, following stock exchange chief executive Paul Chow Man-yiu, whose payment reached 11.15 million HK dollars.

Meanwhile, the Bank of China (Hong Kong), whose last year's profit set a new record, also decided to raise its staff's salary according to individual performance and some staff may get a pay rise as high as 4 percent.

Besides, staff from Bank of China got bonus at the average of 1. 5 times of one month salary.

And the Bank of Communications (Hong Kong) started to raise staff's payment by three percent and an average bonus of one month salary because of its achievements in stock market.

Source: Xinhua