BEIJING — China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) saw more social capital investments in 2020 as the country steps up mixed-ownership reform to improve SOE efficiency.

The country's SOEs received a total of 197.1 billion yuan (about $31 billion) of social capital through equity transfers in 2020, an increase of 13.4 percent from 2019, according to data by the State-owned Property Exchanges Association.

The country has been optimizing the capital structure of SOEs via mixed-ownership reform, introducing private investors as stakeholders of the firms to enhance their operational efficiency.

A total of 5,523 equity transfer projects for SOE mixed-ownership reform were carried out from 2016 to 2020, with the transaction value totaling 1.05 trillion yuan, data by the association showed.