Measures to help halt SOEs' overseas errors

China plans to issue management guidelines to crack down on commercial bribery and tighten rules on product quality and environmental protection for its centrally controlled, State-owned enterprises operating in overseas markets, the country's top SOE regulator said on Tuesday.

The move came after the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission in the first half of 2016 selected five companies - China Mobile, China Merchants Group, Dongfang Electric Corp, China National Petroleum Corp and China Railway Group - as trial businesses that would be made more disciplined, transparent and tougher on product quality.

The companies had completed more than a year of a trial run by the end of 2017 and are being assigned by the commission to help finish draft rules to better guide and manage the 98 central SOEs. The draft will be reviewed by the commission sometime this year, according to the commission's regulatory bureau.