"This regulation draft has come a little late. The gap has already grown too huge in recent years," he told China Daily.

"The salaries of high-level executives in SOEs should be made transparent to the public," he said.

However, industry experts said that a ceiling on salaries might affect the ambitions of some enterprising SOE executives.

"The government should pay attention to the incentive system in order to encourage SOEs to play a bigger role in the Chinese economy," Ma Guangyuan, a business commentator, was quoted as saying in the Information Times.

Earlier this month, the State-controlled Guotai Jun'an Securities was reported to have a 320-million-yuan salary plan in 2008, an average of 1 million yuan for each member of the staff.

(China Daily February 20, 2009)