Economy

Watchdog: First-ever SOE fiscal summary

By Chen Jialu (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-10 14:12
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Total assets skyrocketed to 21 trillion yuan in 2009

In a move to improve transparency, the nation's state assets watchdog has for the first time publicly published an annual review of the nation's centrally administrated State-owned companies.

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The 2009 annual report from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) released last week outlined the annual budgets, payroll and corporate social responsibility performance of China's centrally administrated State-owned enterprises.

"Reports of this kind will be published regularly to make sure SASAC's affairs are disclosed to the public," Deputy Director Huang Shuhe told a media briefing.

Huang said he expects that the proportion of State assets in the nation's overall economy will decrease over time, but their sales and profits will continue to rise.

From 2002 to 2009, the total assets of central SOEs skyrocketed from 7.13 trillion yuan to 21 trillion yuan, an average annual growth of 16.74 percent.

Their sales revenues grew from 3.36 trillion yuan to 12.63 trillion over the period, resulting in profits that rose from 240.5 billion yuan to 815.1 billion yuan. Tax paid by SOEs totaled 5.4 trillion yuan over the eight years. The number of China's SOEs on the list of Fortune Global 500 companies list rose to 30 this year.

"It is crucial to raise our soft power," said Huang. "China's SOEs should have a say in setting the standards of corporate social responsibility globally."

In 2009, central SOEs invested almost 88 billion yuan in energy conservation and emission reduction, which helped the nation reach the goal of reducing emissions of major pollutant 10 percent before the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

Some 107 SOEs donated a total of more than 1.4 billion yuan to needy causes in the first half of 2010, according to statistics from the report.

Donations for relief efforts included 760 million yuan to disaster-affected areas, more than 53 percent of the total, and 190 million yuan for poverty alleviation and other aid, 13.7 percent of the total.

Funding for welfare causes included 202 million yuan to science, education, culture, health and sports, more than 14 percent of total donations.

Even during the global recession, central SOEs continued to recruit college graduates, hiring more than 200,000 last year.

Huang said the branches of SOEs in Hong Kong and Macao accepted as many interns as they could hold in addition to offering job opportunities last year, a contribution that helped lift local employment pressure during the credit crunch.