China will continue recruiting senior managers of major State-owned enterprises (SOEs) in public at home and abroad this year, said an official from the watchdog of China's state-owned assets Saturday.

The Sate-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission(SASAC) is working on the policy to speed up the public recruitment for major SOEs senior managers, said Li Yizhong, deputy director of the SASAC, at a forum on personnel management of Chinese enterprises held here Saturday. The SOEs used to recruit their senior managers in the same way as the government selected officials when China was running planned economy. A breakthrough try was made in September last year. Six large SOEs, directly watched by the SASAC, recruited seven posts of deputy general managers and chief accountants by a public drive at home and abroad, one of which was obtained by a Hong Kong resident. "Major SOEs will adopt competition mechanism to recruit their personnel. They will seek people in job markets for all junior positions and, as for senior ones, they will also go for headhunters," Li said. The SOEs are facing tough competition with multinationals and domestic private companies in personnel resources, Li said, adding that a number of senior and middle-level managers leave the SOEs every year. Those who left the SOEs have accounted for over 30 percent of the number of college graduates the enterprises hired every year since 1998, he said. Large SOEs need to streamline their personnel management, improve the pay and the mechanism to inspire the crew as well as create a better working environment, he added. The SASAC, which directly stands for the state to be the owner of 109 large SOEs, will work out a temporary guideline to manage senior managers of these SOEs by this year to meet the need of building a modern corporate governance in SOEs. The government body will also work on a temporary guideline on the payment of major SOEs senior managers. The annual pay of these senior managers will consist of the basic pay and the bonus at a ratio of 4 : 6, Li said. Several high-tech SOEs will be selected as pilots to adopt MBO (management buy-out) as long-term awards, he added. By 2003, the 109 major SOEs have hired 9.17 million people. They reported a total operating revenue of 1.15 trillion yuan and profit of 103.5 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year.

Source: Xinhua