SOEs advance in reform of ownership

Source: Xinhua | 2018-02-02

CHINA has made steady progress in advancing mixed-ownership reform among state-owned enterprises in a bid to enhance competitiveness and improve financial performance.

More than two-thirds of China’s centrally administered SOEs and their subsidiaries have introduced outside investors, registered new firms, restructured or gone public.

Seven of the 19 SOEs, the first two groups of SOEs to implement ownership reform, have introduced more than 40 investors, injecting over 90 billion yuan (US$14.29 billion), said Gao Zhiyu, an official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

In 2017, centrally administered SOEs had set up over 700 new mixed-ownership companies, attracting above 338.6 billion yuan from the capital market.

Most of the mixed-ownership enterprises were in property development, construction, building materials, telecommunications and mining.

SASAC designated another 31 SOEs as a third group of companies to pilot the reform last year, with 10 centrally and 21 locally administered SOEs. Currently, these enterprises are working on rolling out plans, Gao said.

The listed central SOEs will be the main entities undertaking the reform. Their gross capital and profits took up 63.7 percent and 84.8 percent, respectively, of the total for all central SOEs, he added.