SOE banquet loss no gift for industry

Gift lists for staff members at year-end dinners of Qihoo 360, Xiaomi Corp, and Tencent Holdings are circulating fast online, wowing netizens and leaving many public sector employees somewhat envious. [Photo / Fawan.com]

The "best employee" received a Porsche. Those few judged "excellent" scooped up 500,000 yuan ($82,661) of stocks and trips to Hong Kong. "Good" employees won cool gadgets like the NOTE2 and iPhone 5s.

The year-end dinner for Qihoo 360, an NYSE-listed Chinese Internet company, wowed netizens and left many public sector employees somewhat envious.

Traditionally, Chinese companies host "annual conferences" in the last lunar month of the year to celebrate their success by thanking staff and clients. 

In previous years, the most lavish of such extravaganzas were often the headline grabbing spectacles staged by China's mammoth State-owned enterprises, featuring sumptuous banquets in five-star hotels, swanky gifts and wall-to-wall celebrities. This year, it was private firms that stole the show, while the high-profile SOEs had little to celebrate.

Employees at a number of big SOEs in Beijing told Xinhua that "annual conferences" would either not be held at all, or receptions would be made "as simple as possible".

Gifts for staff members and clients have morphed from MacBooks, iPads and iPhones to chocolates, towels and even toothpaste, they said.

Tian, who works for a State-owned Beijing bank, told Xinhua that his bank won't host an annual conference this year for the first time in many years.

He recounted the good old days when the winner of the prize draw at the annual conference received a 60-gram gold bar and he, together with hundreds of colleagues, won a MacBook.

This new austerity SOEs have adopted is a direct result of a campaign to cut extravagance and reduce red tape, which has been in full swing since the Communist Party of China leadership election in 2012.

The CPC has sworn to reduce waste, promote frugality and banned CPC officials from pomp, ceremony, bureaucratic visits and unnecessary meetings.

These annual dinners, often attended by government officials, evolved into nothing more than wining and dining away public funds, and an opportunity to buy gifts and trips, said Yu Nanping, a professor at East China Normal University.

Many companies turned the year-end dinners into public relations events and a tool for cozying up to government officials, he added.

An annual conference could cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, including planning, lighting, venue hire, catering, services and gifts.