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China to deepen state firm reforms
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-22 17:18
China vowed on Thursday to forge ahead with the reform of state firms,
allowing inefficient ones to go under while encouraging star performers to list
overseas.
Li Rongrong, chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and
Administration Commission (SASAC), also defended the policy of floating
strategic firms abroad rather than at home, saying it sharpened competitiveness.
"In the year ahead, we will step up the pace of reform because our basic
tasks are nearly complete," Li told a year-end news conference reviewing
progress over the past year.
Thousands of state-owned firms have closed in recent years as China makes the
transition from Marx to market, and results this week from China's first
nationwide census portrayed an increasingly vibrant private sector.
But state-run firms still dominate swathes of the economy from
telecommunications to oil refining, from coal to airlines.
Li said more firms would be restructured and their standards of corporate
governance and auditing improved.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 state-linked firms were being shut each year and
employees laid off in the process should turn to the law if they were treated
badly or not properly compensated, said Li, whose agency administers 169 big
state firms.
In a preview of major restructurings to come, Li disclosed that China
National Coal Group, the country's top coal exporter, would probably be listed
in 2006.
He also said that Beijing favoured the merger of the country's top two grain
firms to make them more competitive.
The merger of China National Cereals, Oils &
Foodstuffs Corp. (COFCO) with China Grains and Oils Group Corp. -- and another
with a provincial grains exporter -- would leave COFCO as China's only
state-backed trader of major agricultural commodities.
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