China to accelerate reform of SOEs, Vice-Premier

Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju said Monday that reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should be accelerated to further do away with obstacles to their healthy development.

"Deepening reform of the SOEs remains the central link of economic restructuring. It is a priority of economic work next year, particularly the work of economic restructuring," Huang said at a meeting of heads of 186 SOEs owned solely by the central government.

Huang spelled out major tasks in this field, namely improving the governance structure of SOEs and adjusting the fields they play in, regulating the transfer of their property rights and make SOEs leaner through shedding auxiliary units.

Huang urged promoting the adoption of share-holding systems among SOEs in compliance with the standards of modern business systems, further adjusting the distribution and structure of SOEs in national economy and cultivating big enterprise groups capable of competing on the international market.

In reforming SOEs and transfer of SOEs' property rights, he acknowledged, substantial efforts should be made to guarantee that "state assets should circulate but not be eroded" and "make the process open and fair" to better protect the legal interests and rights of investors and workers.

Huang said the process of splitting auxiliary units from core units of SOEs should be accelerated to increase their competitiveness.

He also asked SOEs to appropriately handle the relationship between reform, development and stability, care for the lives of needy workers and improve production safety.

China's 474 key state-owned SOEs made a total of 518.3 billion yuan (approximately 62.45 billion US dollars) of profits in the first ten months of this year, a rise of 48.3 percent over the same period of last year.

Source: Xinhua