Non-official ExCo members' honorarium not to be raised
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The following is issued on behalf of the Executive Council Secretariat :

     Non-official members of the Executive Council (ExCo) have decided that their monthly honorarium would not be raised, even though the established mechanism suggests that it should.

     "Under the established system, the monthly honorarium of non-official ExCo members is annually adjusted in October by reference to the movements of the Consumer Price Index (C) (CPI(C)). The average CPI(C) for the past year has increased by 1.4%, but non-official ExCo members have decided that their honorarium would remain unchanged. They did the same last year," a spokesman for the ExCo Secretariat said.

     The monthly honorarium of the Convenor is $98,910 and that of other non-official ExCo members is $61,770.

     In October last year, non-official ExCo members decided not to raise their monthly honorarium, despite the fact that the CPI(C) registered a rise of 1.8% for the preceding year.

Ends/Friday, October 22, 2010
Issued at HKT 17:42

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