Beijing aims to harness state, private sectors to build ‘world-class firms’
Private firms need a stable, level playing field, with state-owned enterprises acting as anchors for strategic industries, state-asset watchdog says
China’s state-asset watchdog has urged the country’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to act as an anchor for strategic industries, while also calling for a predictable, level playing field for private firms – a combination it said was essential for building world-class businesses.
Zhang Yuzhuo, chairman of China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), outlined Beijing’s latest push to strengthen both the state and private sectors in an article published on Monday in People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party.
“We need to guide state capital to play a more active role in upgrading traditional industries, fostering cluster-based growth in strategic emerging sectors, and nurturing the industries of the future,” he said.
China’s centrally administered state-owned enterprises invested 1.1 trillion yuan (US$154.6 billion) on research and development last year, with their R&D spending rising by 6.5 per cent per year on average since 2021, according to official data.
“We must tackle the problem of overdue payments to private firms and raise the cost of defaults by government departments and state-owned enterprises. We also need to make regulatory standards and rules public in accordance with the law and enhance the stability and predictability of regulations and policies.”
Whether state-owned or private, building world-class companies is the foundation for developing new sources of international competitiveness