Guangdong will raise minimum wages by an average 18.6 per cent on March 1, and more increases are set to follow over the next five years.
According to the Guangdong provincial government's website, the minimum pay will be lifted by between 140 yuan (HK$165) and 200 yuan, equating to increases of between 18.2 per cent and 19.7 per cent.
It would be the second increase in 10 months and manufacturers warned that an annual rise of at least 15 per cent would follow until 2015 as part of the nation's policy of boosting consumer purchasing power.
Guangzhou will top the wage increases on the mainland with an 18.2 per cent increase to 1,300 yuan a month, the country's highest. Dongguan, the epicentre of Hong Kong-owned factories, will require workers to be paid at least 1,100 yuan a month - up 180 yuan or a 19.6 per cent increase.
As part of the province's 12th five-year plan to 2015, Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang has promised to create a 'happy livelihood' partly by raising labourers' salaries and benefits. But manufacturers are unhappy with the higher labour costs.
'It is inevitable wages will keep rising, at a rate of more than 15 per cent every year,' Hong Kong Young Industrialists Council honorary chairman Eddie Leung Wai-ho said yesterday. 'Costs are rising on all fronts.'
Leung, also a committee member of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said Guangdong's 12th five-year plan was consistent with the central government's, which called for minimum pay to be raised by at least 15 per cent annually until 2015. The Guangdong plan was approved during the annual meeting of the provincial congress this week. The national plan is due for approval at the annual congress in Beijing next month.