SOEs' green goals

Centrally-administrated State-owned enterprises (SOEs) should serve as the backbone of the Chinese economy not only by earning profits but also by playing a leading role in fulfilling the country's green goals.

However, compared with their robust profit growth in recent years, the targets the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) set for central SOEs on energy conservation and pollution control looked rather modest.

Thanks to the deepening of market-oriented reforms, the number of central SOEs has gradually declined from 196 in 2002 to 150-odd last year, while their aggregate profits soared by more than 30 percent annually, much faster than the growth of the national economy.