Zombie enterprises parasites that need to be eradicated

NING JIZHE, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, pledged on Friday to make extra efforts to deal with consistently loss-making, debt-laden State-owned enterprises, so-called zombie enterprises. Beijing News commented on Friday:

One key initiative in reducing excess capacity, as Premier Li Keqiang noted in this year's Government Work Report, is to shut down those companies without productive operations that feast on government subsidies or bank loans. These parasites are facing a moment of truth as the central government has vowed to deal with them.

What constitutes a "zombie enterprise" should be made clear as soon as possible. Enterprises that are in debt and financially incapable of getting back into profit, for example, cannot be mistaken as anything but failed.