Most of China raises minimum wage
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Some 27 provinces and regions in the country adjusted minimum wage levels this year, with Qinghai Province in Northwest China becoming the latest to do so on Tuesday.
The increase in minimum wage has exceeded 20 percent in about 20 provinces, and the raises in Hainan, Sichuan provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region have even topped 30 percent, the Beijing News reported Wednesday.
The Ministry of Finance had set "dynamic adjustment of urban minimum living standards with reference to commodity price" as one of its main tasks in April, the China News Service reported earlier.
The country's consumer price index (CPI) was up 3.3 percent in July from the previous year, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Currently, only Gansu, Guizhou, Chongqing, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have not announced minimum wage adjustment plans.
After the adjustments, Shanghai ranked first nationwide with a monthly minimum wage of 1,200 yuan ($164), and Beijing ranked first in terms of hourly minimum wage with 9 yuan ($1.3), Beijing News reported.
Yuan Gangming, a scholar with the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, was quoted by Xinhua as saying earlier that the raise in minimum wage was directly linked with the increase in CPI.
However, Liu Weixin, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and deputy president of the Chinese Society of Urban Economy, told the Global Times over the telephone Wednesday that the increase was "more of a political concern."
"The value of manpower should be appreciated more to avoid social instability," explained Liu.
Sun Qunyi, secretary of the China Labor Association's Salary Special Committee, told the Beijing News that the raise in the minimum wage in Hainan and Guangdong Provinces was not significant in real terms.
He said the minimum wage in Hainan was still only 830 yuan ($122) per month after the 30 percent increase.
The minimum wage should be adjusted once every two years, according to regulations.
However, the recent adjustment had been postponed for two years because of the international financial crisis in 2008, the Beijing News reported.
