The HSBC Bank International, the offshore financial services arm of HSBC Holdings, indicated that the percentage of expatriates in Russia is about 30%, which is the highest in the world. The expatriates in Russia earn the most —– up to 250,000 dollars a year, in terms of the income standard, expatriates in Japan and Qatar ranked second and third following Russia.

Between one third and one quarter of expatriates in Hong Kong, the UAE, Thailand and India can get a salary of more than 200,000 dollars a year. In terms of the cost of accommodation, countries like Malaysia, China and India were among the cheapest ones.

The survey explained that Asia is the cradle of those highest paid expatriates because 25% of expatriates in Asia can earn more than 200,000 dollars per year.

The top ten highest paid countries for expatriates were all from Asia and the Middle East, in which Russia ranked the first.

Despite the low percentage in population, expatriates from Britain and United States suffered a lot from the economic crisis. A great number of expatriates in Britain and United States began to take returning home into consideration due to the high cost of living and the relative low income.

Paul Say, head of marketing and communications for HSBC Bank International, said in a statement that the some interesting trends appear in terms of expatriates’ reaction towards the financial crisis, and what was also interesting was the fact that most of them belong to a wealthy group.

According to HSBC, Expat Explorer, the largest survey of expatriates under its 2nd year, surveyed more than 3,100 expatriates with different nationalities from 26 countries.

The economic crisis has changed the lifestyle of more than two-thirds of expatriates worldwide, in which their luxuries and daily spending are most influenced. Nearly 40 percent of expatriates began to save more money for even worse economic situation.

Over half of the expatriates in Japan started to refrain from extra spending such as traveling on holidays, etc. Almost 50 percent of expatriates in Thailand and Hong Kong were also doing so.

However, two-thirds of expatriates in Qatar and half of those in Bahrain said that the economic crisis has no impact on their way of spending at all. HSBC pointed out that those Gulf Arab countries have not been hit that hard by the crisis due to their abundant oil resources.

The survey also showed that expatriates in Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Russia are also intended to keeping spending their money on luxuries.
The expatriates who were surveyed should meet four criteria: annual income of more than 200,000 dollars; a monthly income of more than 3,000 dollars which is free to spend; an increase in saving after working abroad and at least two luxury items in their home country.

The survey was carried out between February and April 2009.

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According to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, last year, workers in Beijing averagely earned 44,715 yuan, which is 4,848 yuan more, or a 12 percent increase than that in 2007.

Statistics of the Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau shows that last year, workers in Shanghai averagely earned 3,292 yuan a month, which is 400 yuan more or 13.8 percent increase than that in 2007.

Beijing’s statistics bureau also showed us a picture of different salary standards in different careers. Beijing’s statistics bureau has 138,000 units, including State-owned, private, foreign-funded and joint venture companies. Among which, stockbrokers earned most salary last year. Some top executives earned more than 1 million yuan last year.

People in financing, banking, maritime transport, air transport, insurance, tobacco, radio, TV, film and audio industries, made 100,000 yuan on average last year.

People in Telecommunications, computer service, and software industries earned 80,000 to 100,000 yuan on average last year. They are just below those financial workers.

However, the industries of clothing, footwear and headgear were the poorest industries for their workers earned less than 20,000 yuan on an average.

As salaries vary in different industries, they also diverse greatly in the same industry. The most dramatic difference can be show in the securities industry, whose annual incomes varies from less than 50,000 yuan to more than 1 million yuan.

Different opinions have been aroused by this data. Lin Nan, an employee of a Beijing-based exhibition firm said, “I first thought it was impossible that people’s salaries could vary so drastically. I did not get any raise in my salary last year.”

And he believed that this survey dose not show the real status because the interviewed people are only a small group of filthy rich employees showing a jump in everyone’s salary.

A secretary general of Shanghai Human Resources Consulting Association claimed that it is the Shanghai’s introduction of more international financial professionals last year that helped raise the level of salaries.

As he said, shanghai has been trying to attracting more top talents from around the world to develop more high-end sectors like consulting, financial and technology research. The effort made on optimizing the city’s industry structure is also a factor on increasing salaries.

Are you interested in the business opportunities in China?

China is one of the world’s great growth markets and is likely to be for many years to come. Foreign companies often face difficulties in assessing Chinese market demand and enacting effective strategies because of the language barriers, culture differences, and high expense.

BPOVIA is the leading virtual assistant and Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) service provider in China. BPOVIA is the only virtual assistant company ever been nominated for the prestigious “Red Herring 100 Asia” Awards 2008. Combines international perspective with local know-how, BPOVIA can provide our clients China business development service and help our clients doing successful business in China.

Please visit http://www.BPOVIA.com/ for details about our service.