Way I see it, either performance is outstanding or you have really good relationship with ur boss and also alot of luck. U might even need to have two of the above before u get promoted as ultimately it also depends on whether they have headcount to spare. In many cases, for the strangest reasons, they rather hire perm from outside than to promote internal long standing contract staff. Have also seen cases where pay increment for contract staff are delayed for several months or taxi claims for overtime work not being processed. Not sure about other departments, but contract staff are usually given the less important or most undesirable jobs to do that no one wants to do. In some departments, especially where local talent is scarce like in IT, the team is dominated by foreign bosses of a race and it appears that the hirng or promo opportunities are given to their own kind