State firms urged to do more dividend spread

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the central government level have been urged to give minority shareholders a fair deal through more dividend payouts and thereby set an example for other listed companies.

For years, publicly-traded companies, most of which are majority owned by the State, have always been chary about paying dividends, chiefly because the management's major concern was to conserve capital to finance growth.

This has become a hotly debated issue as the Chinese stock market is drawing in more and more funds from institutional investors, especially pension funds that count dividend income as an important source of regular income.