Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa last night rejected a call for senior officials to take pay cuts to help avoid more lay-offs in the private sector.
He insisted the existing pay adjustment mechanism should be adhered to.
Leading banker David Li Kwok-po said at a Legco debate on the Policy Address that top officials should be paid 10 per cent less, middle-ranking officials should take a five per cent cut and low-ranking staff should be unaffected.
Mr Li, who represents the banking constituency, said most of the 40 to 50 bankers he had spoken to on Tuesday agreed that senior officials should follow the example of the Singapore Government by taking a 10 per cent pay cut.
'If the Government takes the lead, the commercial sector will also follow. That means, hopefully, there will be less people unemployed,' he said.
Before leaving for the Apec meeting in Shanghai last night, Mr Tung said there was an established mechanism for reviewing and adjusting civil service pay scales.