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)