China Business Network:
When will the three-year action plan on the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) be launched? Could you share the general guidelines and key tasks of the reform? What breakthroughs will be made in the reforms of mixed SOE ownership, SOE restructuring and the supervision mechanism of state-owned assets in the year 2020, the first year of the action plan? Thank you.
Peng Huagang:
Thank you for your question. This is also a matter of public concern. The action plan has preliminarily taken shape over a period of time that has included plenty of research, repeated evaluation and improvement. It now comes into the approval process. It is highly valued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council as a pressing issue of high urgency. When it is launched, we will give a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the plan.
As for your question, the overall consideration of the plan is to better implementing General Secretary Xi Jinping's major expositions on SOE reform and, development of state-owned assets and enterprises, as well as a Party building. This involves three important issues: First, the requirements of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on SOE reform will be further specified and carried out in the three-year actions. Second, a number of SOE reform policies, namely the "1+N" policies, have been implemented in recent years. For those not put in place, we have made a schedule and a roadmap to accelerate the implementation. Third, we have gained some experience at the grassroots level in recent years from pilot and demonstration projects, including "Ten Pilot Reforms" and "Double Hundred Actions." The experience will be promoted in the next step of SOE reform.
In fact, these considerations and requirements will be fully reflected in the action plan, even though it has not yet been released. Nevertheless, the actions have started this year, which is the first year to implement the three-year action plan. We have laid out some of our priorities for reform this year, and we have advanced them actively, which embodies the requirements of the three-year action plan. This year's reform will focus on the following aspects:
First, we will improve the modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics. We will implement the "two policies of consistency" to encourage the establishment of a board of directors, as needed. We will further clarify the boundaries of rights and responsibilities of Party committees (leading Party groups), boards of directors, managers and other governance bodies to implement the functions and powers of the board of directors and accelerate the establishment of a corporate governance mechanism in which one will do their part while cooperating with others to have effective checks and balances.
