China’s reform on central SOEs brings record growth

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China's centrally-administrated state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported the strongest-ever growth in revenue and profit for the period between January and August thanks to the government's reforms, the chief of the state assets watchdog said on Thursday.

"In the first eight months, China's central SOEs reported a 15.7-percent increase in business revenue and a 17.3-percent growth in total profits, both historical highs," said Xiao Yaqing, chairman of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Under the government's supply-side structural reform, central SOEs have also made considerable progress in excess capacity cuts and leverage control.

"From January to August, China's central SOEs beat government-set targets by reducing 16.14 million tons of steel capacity and 55.1 million tons of coal capacity," Xiao said.

The official also revealed that by the end of August, the average debt-to-asset ratio of China's central SOEs dropped to 66.5 percent, 0.2 percentage points lower than the beginning of this year.

China has reduced the number of central SOEs from 117 to 98, including finalizing a merger between two of the country's top bullet train makers, and the efforts made in the past five years are gradually paying off with increasing efficiency and competitiveness of SOEs.

By the end of 2016, the total assets of China's central SOEs reached 50.5 trillion yuan (about 7.62 trillion US dollars) － an 80-percent jump from the end of 2011.

Xiao stressed that the restructuring of central SOEs is decided by market needs and technology development instead of the number or size of central SOEs.

Mixed-ownership reform has also been carried out widely with more than two-thirds of central SOEs having introduced social capital to diversify equities, Xiao said.

The area of mixed-ownership reform will expand beyond the initial sectors of energy and telecommunications, Peng Huagang, spokesperson for the state assets watchdog said at the press conference, noting that a new round of mixed-ownership reform is under consideration and will be carried out soon.

(With inputs from Xinhua)