BEIJING — China's centrally-administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are making growth plans for the 14th Five-Year period (2021-2025), with a focus on high-quality development to underpin broader economic and social development.

The growth targets of China's central SOEs will be specified once the country's 14th five-year plan for economic and social development is approved by the top legislature, said Hao Peng, chief of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), at a press conference on Feb 23.

In the coming five years, the high-quality development of the central SOEs will be further enhanced, with progress seen in their business scale and profitability, according to Hao.

The central SOEs are also expected to double their efforts in research and development to make new breakthroughs in core technologies and key industries.

Hao said industrial layout for the central SOEs will be further optimized, and their presence in strategic emerging industries would be consolidated from 2021 to 2025.

Central SOEs have long played a pillar role in China's economic development. The total assets of these enterprises reached 69.1 trillion yuan (about $10.71 trillion) by the end of last year, representing an annual growth rate of 7.7 percent during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

In the meantime, their total profits and net profits showed average annual growth rates of 8.8 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively.

In the overseas market, the operating revenue of the central SOEs surpassed 24 trillion yuan and total profits reached nearly 600 billion yuan over the same period.

Currently, the overseas assets of China's central SOEs stand at 8 trillion yuan, with presence in more than 180 countries and regions.

At the press conference, SASAC spokesperson Peng Huagang said the debt risks of the central SOEs are generally controllable. Peng noted that the commission will implement an early-warning mechanism of financial risks for SOE corporate bonds and formulate guidelines to strengthen risk controls of local SOE corporate debts.

Centrally-administered SOEs have focused on preventing corporate default risks in recent years and their average debt-to-asset ratio declined to 64.5 percent by the end of 2020, Peng added.