China's centrally administered State-owned enterprises should accelerate steps to push forward mixed-ownership reform, make breakthroughs in key and core technologies and promote digital transformation, as the main task of the three-year (2020-22) action plan for SOEs is expected to be finished in the first half, the country's top State-asset regulator said.
The central SOEs have taken a series of measures to promote strategic restructuring and business integration last year, Weng Jieming, vice-chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, said during a meeting on Jan 17.
They have also accelerated investments in strategic emerging industries, such as new energy vehicles, the Beidou Satellite Navigation System, e-commerce, blockchain, 5G and other new types of information infrastructure, Weng said.
SOEs are active players on China's strategically important and most acclaimed industrial fronts. Central SOEs have achieved 70 percent of the goals of the three-year action plan in 2021, he added.
Looking forward, SASAC will work to ensure that goals outlined in the three-year action plan will be fully achieved by the end of this year, Weng added.
In 2020, the country began to implement the three-year action plan (2020-22) for SOEs, aiming to deepen reforms in State-owned assets and enterprises to a new level and make SOEs more competitive, innovative and resistant to risk.
More efforts should be made to further mixed-ownership reform, introduce strategic investors from the outside to SOEs and explore flexible and market-oriented salary systems, Weng said, while noting central SOEs should be given full play of their vital roles in making breakthroughs in core technologies.
SASAC said net profits of central SOEs expanded to 1.75 trillion yuan ($275.8 billion) in the first 11 months of 2021, and enterprises in the petroleum and petrochemical, iron and steel as well as coal industries saw an apparent increase in profitability.
The reform has already made substantial moves in fields like electricity, oil, natural gas, railway, civil aviation and telecommunications, SASAC said.
In December, a new State-owned logistics group was established through a merger of China Railway Materials Group Corp and four branches of China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd.
SASAC holds a 38.9 percent stake in the new company, with China Chengtong Holdings Group owning the same amount in the company. Strategic investors include China Eastern Airlines, China COSCO Shipping Corp Ltd and China Merchants Group, holding 10 percent, 7.3 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.
Li Jin, chief researcher at the China Enterprise Research Institute in Beijing, said the mixed-ownership reform has become a critical part of overall SOE reforms and the mergers and acquisitions will continue this year.
SOEs could establish a standardized governance mechanism and sound incentive and restraint mechanism through the capital market in a bid to improve their operational efficiency, Li said, adding that the restructuring in grain reserves, ports, steel and coal will speed up this year.
