Provinces drawing up plans for State asset management

Guangdong and Shanghai are taking the lead in drafting a market-oriented reform plan for State-owned assets management, which is expected to serve as a reference for other provinces with large-scale national assets.

Guangdong is looking to securitize up to 60 percent of its State-owned assets by the end of 2015, from a current level of 20 percent, leaving only two years for local State-asset watchdogs to reach the goal.

Lyu Yesheng, head of the Guangdong State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Committee, said the focus for the province's 4 trillion yuan ($655 billion) worth of national assets will be on optimizing allocation, shifting away from asset management and toward capital management.

Local authorities are working out the details.

To this end, the South China province will be learning from Singapore's experience in setting up a Temasek-like government-led investment management company, Peng Peng, independent director for the local national assets supervisor, was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Securities News.

Preparation for the company started at the end of last year, according to Peng.

In East China's Shanghai, another hub for national assets, a reform plan for State-owned assets likely will be released as early as next week at a conference of local SASACs.

Several large State-owned enterprises in Shanghai made a series of management changes when the new round of national asset reform was put under the spotlight. Some Shanghai-listed SOEs posted an upswing in stock prices, while others suspended trading pending "vital matters".

This round of reform will be different from the previous round of SOE reform with its massive IPOs, as it will focus on introducing more private capital and emerging sectors.

In the meantime, Shenzhen is looking to release a revised supervisory system for State-owned assets next year, and such regions as Shandong and Jiangsu also are drafting reform plans.