Trying to narrow the wealth gap among residents, Guangdong Province will allow no further rises in pay to employees at the province's monopolistic industries and companies for the rest of this year.

The provincial Bureau of Labor and Social Security issued a salary growth guideline yesterday for the enterprises in the prosperous south China province.

Salaries in the province will rise by an average of 11 percent this year, and the companies that show good profit but are paying lower salaries may increase salaries to a ceiling of 15 percent.

But the emergency brake has been applied at the province's monopolistic industries and companies to avoid antagonizing the workers who are currently earning low salaries, said an official from Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Labor and Social Security.

The average salary at the province's monopolies has reached three times that of the province's average salary last year, the bureau said.

"The ban on wage growth of the province's monopolistic industries and companies will help correct the malpractices in all trades and professions in the whole province," said the official who refused to be named.

It is the first time the local government has stopped wage growth of the province's monopolies, which consist mainly of those in the electricity generating and supply, water supply, crude oil refining and refined oil sales and some petrochemical sectors.

Many locals agreed with the government's move.

Chang Hongjun, a worker at a foreign-funded company in Guangzhou, said the salaries at the monopolies, "which are earning excess profit owing to the State's special preferential policies, are high enough when compared with those of ordinary workers."

"It would not be fair if the staff from the monopolies enjoyed the same salary increases as the massive number of ordinary workers," Chang said.

Last year, the salaries paid to the workers in Guangdong Province totaled 199.11 billion yuan (US$24.89 billion), up 12.4 percent from 2004.

And the province's per capita average annual salary came to 23,900 yuan (US$2,988) in 2005, up 13.1 percent year-on-year.

(China Daily July 19, 2006)