Gree increases salaries of its employees

An outlet of Gree Electric Appliances Inc in Yichang, Hubei province. [Photo/China Daily]

Employees who had been working for Gree Electric Appliances Inc for over three months received a Thanksgiving gift from the company on Thursday. Each of them will get an additional 1,000 yuan ($144.66) per month from December, according to a report by Beijing Youth Daily.

Around 70,000 employees in the company are entitled to this salary increase, which means Gree's wage costs will rise by more than 800 million yuan per year, Beijing Youth Daily said.

An internal announcement said that as the company has achieved production automation through independent innovation, the salary rise is aimed at sharing the company's innovation fruit with all the workers.

"The company, which is facing opportunities and challenges brought by the industry's revolution, is actively optimizing its industrial distribution and exploring new paths and modes for the transformation and upgrading. And the task cannot be accomplished without every employee's efforts," said the announcement.

The decision of salary increase was put forward by Dong Mingzhu, the Chinese businesswoman who chairs the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In October, Dong was removed from the chairman and president positions of Gree Group, Gree's State-owned parent company, by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Zhuhai City, although she remains as the head of Gree Electric Appliances Inc.

The move is based on the new regulations that one individual cannot be chairman of both a holding group and a listed company.

Under Dong, Gree has developed into a top domestic air-conditioning manufacturer and its revenue last year reached 100 billion yuan ($14.7 billion).