Faster compilation of new rules and the stricter examination of the
performance of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their
managers are two major issues that top the agenda of China's
newly-established state assets supervisory body.
To
ensure efficiency and avoid disputes, the State-owned Assets
Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) is gathering pace
in drafting rules over a wide range of issues involved in the state
assets management and supervisory scheme.
Rules, which are already being planned, concern the authorization
of state assets management in enterprises, ways to handle major
events in the key subsidiaries of the SOEs, transfer of property
rights owned by the state and measures to handle relative property
rights disputes, said SASAC Director Li Rongrong at a working
conference yesterday in Beijing.
Also in the pipeline are a regulation on the performance evaluation
of the state assets operation and one on the transfer of
state-owned shares in listed companies.
Li
did not give a timetable of the rules, but said the work is a
matter of urgency.
The three-month-old SASAC, the sole representative of the state as
an owner and investor in the 196 biggest SOEs, leads a dramatic
reform of the state-assets management system in China, with
subordinate local supervisory agencies across the country.
Only playing the role as an investor in the SOEs means it should
not shoulder the public management functions of the government, but
focus on the maintenance and appreciation of the value of the
state-owned assets, said Li.
The SASAC is trying to build a new and comprehensive evaluation
system of SOE managers, whose position, payment and relative awards
and penalties will be closely connected to their actual
performance.
Li
said the system will be practiced next year in all the 196 central
SOEs, with clear objectives set for the managers in the working
contracts. Enterprise leaders that cannot meet the goals will
receive lower payments or be removed.
But stock options and other incentives will also be applied to
encourage good performers.
(China Daily July 11, 2003)