China’s top authority for state-owned assets has launched a new round of reforms for the country’s central state-owned enterprises (SOE’s).
The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) announced on 11 May that it has launched a new “contraction and reduction specialist work plan,” for the purpose of “driving the further slimming down and optimisation of central SOE’s.”
Under the plan central SOE’s will see the contraction of management levels and the reduction of legal person numbers.
Weng Jieming (翁杰明), SASAC deputy-chair, said the goals of the plan are to:
- Clear out and withdrawn a set of enterprises.
- Optimise and integrate a set of enterprises.
- Implement focused supervision and control of a set of enterprises.
- Further reduce legal person numbers.
- Strive to keep the number of management levels at central enterprise groups at four or less, and keep the number of management levels at the majority of enterprise legal persons at five or less.
SASAC will also include “contraction and reduction work” within annual assessments of the senior executives of central SOE’s.
Weng said that since 2016 SASAC had guided central SOE’s in adopting vigorous measures to drive contraction and reduction work, leading to a reduction in the number of central SOE’s to 19,965 legal persons as of the end of last year, over 70% of whom have less than 5 levels of management.
“Enterprise operating costs have fallen further, and management efficiency has continually increased,” said Weng.
