Senior managers of China's Ping An Insurance, listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, were hit by a pleasant surprise this week when the company announced a huge bonus for them.

According to Ping An's 2006 annual report, four of the company's senior managers get an after-tax pay of over 10 million yuan (about US$1.3 million) each, with the top one reaching 17.1 million yuan, and the total sum paid to top level managers reached 74.64 million yuan, a record among all A-share companies.

Ping An is a leading Chinese life insurers, its net profits soared 79.3 percent to 5.99 billion yuan in 2006.

Sheng Ruisheng, spokesman for Ping An, said Friday that as a public company, the base wage of senior managers is not very high. But if they are able to reach some "challenging" targets, they will get the larger part called "performance pay".

With more companies listed on the stock markets and their sharp profit rise over the past two years, payment to senior managers of public companies have been constantly setting new highs. Compared with the income of ordinary Chinese, the payment to senior managers are stunning numbers and are often hotly chatted on the internet.

According to official statistics, in 2006 the average monthly per capita income of Beijing was 1,822 yuan, the highest in the country, while the national average was about 1,000 yuan.

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