China SOEs report surge in profits

BEIJING - The net profits of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) witnessed an average annual growth of 25.2 percent from 2003 to 2011, the country's chief supervisor of state-owned assets announced on Wednesday.

Wang Yong, head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), said during a briefing at the ongoing bimonthly session of the national legislature that SOEs' net profits increased from 320 billion yuan ($51.2 billion) to 1.9 trillion yuan during the period.

According to Wang, China had 144,700 SOEs and state-controlled enterprises by the end of 2011, and their total assets topped 85.37 trillion yuan, 3.3 times larger than that of 2003.

In 2011, the total revenue of SOEs was 39.25 trillion yuan, which had brought them net profits of 2.58 trillion yuan and contributed 3.45 trillion yuan in tax. In the year, SOEs took 35 percent of the total revenue of the country's industrial and commercial sectors, 43 percent of net profits and 40 percent of tax contributions, said Wang.

The figures do not include SOEs in the financial sector, the SASAC head added.

Wang attributed the progresses to the country's dedication in reforming SOEs in recent decades, work which has greatly improved their performances.

In 2012, 54 Chinese SOEs made it into the Fortune 500, pointed out Wang.

He also highlighted SOEs' achievements in science and technology innovations, as they had obtained over 214,000 original patents by 2011 and had carried out cutting-edge tasks such as a manned space program, moon probe, off-shore drilling and work with deep-sea research submersibles.

In terms of international operations, Wang noted that SOEs directly administered by the central government held overseas assets of some 3.1 trillion yuan and net profits of some 103.5 billion yuan by the end of 2011.

In addition, SOEs had transferred shares of 211.9 billion yuan to the country's social security funds as of last December, accounting for about 43.1 of the country's financial input into the funds.

These achievements amply demonstrated the successful combination of public ownership and market economy, said Wang, calling for China to stick to the path of reforming SOEs with its unique characteristics.