Key enterprises are the large enterprises identified by the
State, ministries or provinces and autonomous regions and quite a
number of them are state-owned. There are different types of key
enterprises: national key enterprises: enterprises under the
Administration of the Central Committee for Enterprise Affairs; key
enterprises identified by the people's governments of provinces,
autonomous regions, and municipalities under the direct
administration of the central government; the 100 pilot enterprises
picked up by the State Council for piloting the modern enterprise
system; the parent companies (i.e. the core companies) of the
State-appointed pilot enterprise groups. There could be overlapping
cases among the above-mentioned categories of key enterprises.
Examining the market-oriented development of the key enterprises
supplements to the analysis on the degree of marketization of the
above-mentioned non-state owned sector and state-owned enterprises.
Generally speaking, the State exercises stricter control over the
key enterprises than non-key enterprises, and the relaxation of
control on the key enterprises would mean the marketization of
other types enterprises were on an even greater magnitude. The
Enterprise Survey Organization of the National Bureau of
Statistics of China conducted a tagged statistical
investigation on the establishment of modern enterprise system in
2001 involving 4371 key enterprises of the country, including 514
national key enterprises, 181 key state-owned enterprises under the
administration of the central government, 93 enterprises out of the
100 pilot enterprises picked up by the State Council for
establishing modern enterprise system, 121 parent companies of the
State Council appointed national pilot enterprise groups and over
3000 provincial key and pilot enterprises, from which the
market-oriented development of the key enterprises are
presented.
By the end of 2001, 3322 out of the 4371 key enterprises that
accepted investigation were turned into joint stock limited
companies, covering 76 percent of the total. Among them there were
866 wholly state-owned companies, 1098 companies with limited
liability. 1191 joint stock limited companies, accounting for 26.07
percent, 33.05 percent and 35.85 percent respectively of the total
enterprises that underwent ownership transformation. Of the
transformed enterprises, the wholly non-state owned companies (i.e.
other types of companies with limited liability or shares) took up
a proportion of 73.93 percent of the total number of restructured
key enterprises.
In terms of each type of key enterprises, the ownership
transformation covered 77.2 percent of the 514 national key
enterprises, 21 percent of the 181 national key enterprises under
the administration of the central government, 88.2 percent of the
93 enterprises out of the 100 pilot enterprises picked up by the
State Council for establishing modern enterprise system, 52.1
percent of the 121 parent companies of the State Council appointed
national pilot enterprise groups, 80.2 percent of the 1955
provincial (municipal, regional) key enterprises, 83.2 percent of
the 2222 pilot enterprises appointed by the province (municipality/
autonomous region) for establishing modern enterprises system.
Out of the 3322 restructured key enterprises, 3118 had completed
reappraisal of stocks and assets and defining the property rights,
on which basis a clearly defined enterprise fund contributor system
was established. The availability of fund contributors in
transformed enterprises reached 93.9 percent and that for all key
enterprises was 71.36 percent. In 2001, the sum total of the
registered capital of the 3322 transformed enterprises amounted to
1,143.7 billion yuan, of which 738.3 billion yuan were capital
invested by the State, accounting for 64.55 percent; capital of
other sources including collective capital, legal person capital,
individual capital and foreigner's capital amounted to 405.4
billion yuan, accounting for 35.45 percent, meaning the former
unitary and exclusive property right structure was broken and the
situation with only one dominating shareholder was being
changed.
It is obvious, then, the ownership transformation has
preliminarily realized systemic, scientific and standardized
management of assets, and the enterprise legal person system with
"clarified property rights and clearly defined duties all powers"
was basically established.
(China.org.cn November 7, 2003)
