The nation's long-awaited State-assets management firm, Guoxin Asset Management Co will be launched later this year, a move to stimulate State asset restructuring and further reduce the number of State-owned enterprises, the head of State-asset watchdog said last Friday.
"The purpose of establishing Guoxin Asset Management Co is to speed up the mergers and acquisitions of centrally-administrated State-owned enterprises," Li Rongrong, minister of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), told CEOs and presidents of SOEs during a special meeting for them.
SASAC hopes the plan will reduce the current number of centrally administrated SOEs from 125 to below 100 by the end of this year, according to the minsiter.
Guoxin Asset Management Co will become the third ranked such company in charge of SOE restructuring, following the State Development Investment Corporation and China Cheng Tong Holding Company.
During the first half of this year, the combined profits of central SOEs climbed 65.1 percent year-on-year to 524.96 billion yuan, said Li.
Year-on-year profit increases were recorded by 115 enterprises, accounting for 92.7 percent of the nation's central SOEs.
Combined sales revenue for centrally-administered SOEs has reached 7.79 trillion yuan during the first six months of this year, 44.3 percent higher than that in 2009. And 119 enterprises saw income increases during the first half.
Currently there are 41 SOEs whose revenues exceed 50 billion yuan. This year, 30 central-level SOEs were listed in the global top 500, compared to just 16 in 2007.
