Starting this year, China would carry out an annual survey on payrolls of staff with 146 centrally-administered state owned enterprises (SOEs) amid public complaints that they were getting unreasonably high pay, the state assets watchdog has said.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Management Commission (SASAC) said it would gather the salary information on general posts such as accounting, administration and IT support.

The survey would cover employees in the SOEs' headquarters and secondary subsidiaries. The 146 SOEs were required to report the information to the SASAC before Dec. 20. Results of the survey would be publicized within these SOEs later.

The SASAC did not say when the results would be publicized to the general public.

There have been complaints on high incomes of SOE employees, garnered from profits made from government subsidies, unilaterally-imposed fees and charges, and substandard services.