BEIJING: Witnessing severe belt-tightening by the government, millions of Chinese civil servants are wary about around 25 per cent cut in their salaries while teachers and officials were asked to pay back bonuses, due to the worsening financial conditions across the country, according to a media report.
Hong Kong Post reported that local governments across China have charged Yuan 20,000 each in repayments for the first quarter of 2021 from the civil servants and teachers at public institutions in Henan, Jiangxi, and Guangdong provinces.
While the governments have also informed that all bonuses had been suspended indefinitely. Civil service bonuses have been suspended in Shanghai, Jiangxi, Henan, Shandong, Chongqing, Hubei and Guangdong, according to The Hong Kong Post.
It further reported that in the eastern province of Jiangxi, the Nanchang water resources bureau ordered its employees in June 2021 to repay their bonuses within 10 days. Authorities in Dexing city have ordered teachers to repay bonuses to their schools.
Lately, many government workers in China are seeing their salaries getting reduced by around one-fifth, as per The Hong Kong Post. The HK Post also reported that the fiscal health of local governments in China has deteriorated, especially since the first half of 2020. All the provinces except Shanghai reported fiscal deficits, implying that they expended more than they earned.
According to official figures, the deficit of the provincial governments rose by 30 percent in the first half of 2020, by Yuan 3.4 trillion. Henan, Sichuan and Yunnan all reported fiscal deficits of more than Yuan 250 billion each while the overall debt situation of the Chinese government is a matter of concern.
According to The Hong Kong Post, China’s non-financial-sector debt–incurred by the government, corporate, and household sectors–reached a record level of 272 percent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. In the third quarter of 2021, the number marginally improved to 265 percent of GDP, but it is likely to have an adverse impact on the growth of the country, The HK Post reported. (ANI)
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