China's top legislature on Tuesday adopted a law designed to protect state-owned assets from being illegally seized.

The enterprise state-owned assets law, which goes into effect on May 1, 2009, was approved at a bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) after the third reading.

China has nearly 120,000 state owned enterprises. These included enterprises or companies with sole state ownership and joint-venture companies with the state as the biggest shareholders, according to State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (ASAC) statistics.

(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2008)