Li Rongrong, head of the watchdog for the state-owned assets, said at a national meeting that more than 1000 state controlled enterprises had gone public and raised more than 1 trillion yuan on the domestic and overseas market.

He noted that these state firms are the pillar of the state-owned economy. And 80 percent of state-owned small and medium sized enterprises, he declared, have converted to stock companies.

The reform on state firms, however, he recognized, still faces pending problems to be addressed. Large SOEs are supposed to pace up their reform on share holding structure. The corporate governance of solely state-owned companies needs further consideration. And the drain-off of the state-owned assets has not been stopped yet due to the irregularity in the reform of state-owned SMEs.

The ownership restructuring of SOEs and the transfer of state property rights involve multiple interest groups and any imprudence may cause losses. Given this, Li vowed to focus the efforts on ensuring a well-regulated process.

As learned all eligible large SOEs are encouraged to float on the home or overseas market when they successfully diversify their ownership. They should have their main assets floated whenever possible.

Those who partly go public are supposed to integrate their non-listed assets involving their main business into the listed companies through acquisitions or additional stakes.

He highlighted the importance of well-regulated operation of listed companies controlled by state-owned assets. He warned against behaviors of using the listed assets incompliance with the regulations or forced guarantee.

By People's Daily Online