CRI听力:China to Reform State-owned Asset Management

According to the guideline, in a break from the current supervision body that manages the capital as well as state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the new organ will only supervise the use of capital and return other administrative tasks to relevant government departments.

The guideline specified plans to establish an investment firm to manage the state's capital and restructure state-owned enterprises.

It is a supporting document for the central government's guideline on advancing SOE reforms released in September.

Liu Shangxi is director of Research Institute for Fiscal Science with the Ministry of Finance.

"The investment firm will work to manage the capital instead of providing specific products or services. The emerging of such a company as an intermediary agent will prevent the government from interfering in the concrete operation of enterprises. "

The country will also accelerate elimination of outdated and excessive capacity for SOEs and dispose of inefficient assets.

State capital will be removed from some SOEs, while others will be restructured or upgraded on the basis of innovation.

Liu added that the move aims to enhance the role of state-owned assets.

"The ultimate goal is to make state-owned assets more vital and more influential. It's to make state-owned assets play a better role in economic reconstructing and upgrading, and in fulfilling their social responsibility."

Yet many difficulties still lie in the reform of state-owned asset management, and Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei has noted that more work is needed to help deal with the difficulties.

"Fundamentally, as long as it's a set of stated-owned assets, it will be associated with the government. Then a series of complicated problems will be brought about. If we want to deal with the problems properly, we will need to leave some leeway, to make progress step by step, to make a balance between management and decentralization, and to encourage exploration."

China has about 150,000 SOEs, which hold more than 100 trillion yuan, or about 15.7 trillion U.S dollars, in assets. However, the SOEs have posted an 8.2-percent decline in profits in the first three quarters of this year.

In the process of establishing investment firms and restructuring SOEs, the guideline says some state equity will be transferred into the social security funds, so that proceeds from those equities can be used to make up shortfalls in pension funds.

For CRI, this is Xie Cheng.