Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly going to get a raise from the US$13,600 he gets annually to US$22, 300 after a general pay increase for public employees was announced, China Daily state media confirms on Tuesday.

The recent report by the news agency has given the Chinese citizens an idea of how much their leader makes. However, the figures released reportedly do not include other allowances and perks of being in the said position. Also, other officials were asked about their exact base salary figures but declined to give comments. Online discussion from the news agency's website about the salary has also been closed.

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The China Daily wrote that the base salaries of their president as well as six more members of the Standing Committee of the Communist party had a raise from 7,020 yuan or US$1,140 to 11, 385 yuan or US$1,850 meaning that the increase was  62 percent. These were the first ever raises since year 2006 and that civil servants at lower positions have been quitting working for the government because of their low payment.

Liu Bangxiu, a microblogger and a car assessor, wrote that the government officials in China has a lot of ways to enrich themselves as he congratulated them for having the salary increase. He adds that everyone knows being a public servant equates to low pay but questioned why a lot of people still want to become part of the government.

President Xi has been trying to eradicate the problem of corruption since he started in office more than two years ago. With the salary increases, it is believed politicians giving in to corruption will be lessen.       

Chinese leaders are trying to follow the steps of countries such as Singapore where public servants get high salaries in order to avoid graft and corruption. 

Tagssalary increase, graft and corruption