State-owned Assets Regulator Signals Fourth Round of Mixed-ownership Reforms

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Recent actions on the part of the state-owned assets regulator have been interpreted by China’s official media as signalling the launch of a fourth round of mixed-ownership reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOE’s).

Securities Daily reports that senior officials from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) have conducted tours of Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan, Henan, Sichuan and Shanghai over the pat month, calling for the “active and steady growth of the mixed-ownership economy,” as well as greater independent innovation and innovation-driven growth.

Liu Xingguo, a researcher (刘兴国) from the China Enterprise Confederation, said that the purpose of the latest round of SASAC inspections were for the purpose of “advancing as soon as possible a summarisation of the experiences obtained from the previous round of reform,” as well as “understanding certain key problems faced during the progression of reform that were not anticipated.”

Sources said to Securities Daily said that some enterprise have already received official notice of the launch of a fourth round of mixed-ownership reform trials, and that the results of the three preceding rounds of trial reforms are currently undergoing assessment.

SASAC media spokesperson Meng Wei (孟玮) said that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) had given its approval to trial plans for the subsidiaries of 8 central SOE’s out of the 31 enterprises included in the third trial reform batch, while local authorities had given their approval to trial plans for 15 local SOE’s.