The SOE reform in China
Zhou Dayong
Summer semester 2003
Europa-University Viadrina,Germany

Abstract:
The essay tries to study the process of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in China. Chinese economic reform resulted in significant influences on all social aspects, SOEs as an especially economic sector suffers a change both in internal management as well in the outside economic environment. I try to discuss in the essay, that the Chinese SOE reform has made large progress, however, SOE can’t conquer many problems by itself, the resolution of SOE lies in elimination of SOE by a further reform including property transition and construction of a fairer market.


Outline
1. History of the SOE reform in China
2. The main problems left in the reform
3. The reasons of SOE problem behind
4. Argue of some reform plans and suggestion
5. Conclusion


1. The history of the SOEs reform in China
1.1 the establishment of SOE
In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came into power in Mainland China. One goal of the CCP was to lead China into a modern socialism society. In economic scale, it meant mainly industrialization. According to CCP’s policy, the form of industrial organization must be based upon state owned enterprises. The state-owned industrial system was set up by two ways. One was the new enterprise after the liberation. At the end WWII, most industrial sectors in China, such as communication network, transportation and power industry were destroyed and had to be rebuilt, at the same time, military industries and financial sector e.g. banking system was directly nationalized from the former control of Gongmin Party. Another way was transformation from the private ownership to state-owned enterprises. The private properties were regulated under state management, in some cases, for instance in commercial scale, the former private enterprises were bought by local government gradually. Till 1952, about 83% of industrial companies were controlled by the state; a socialism economic system was announced established. (Fig 1)
1.2 The reform began from 1978
Until Chinese economic reform began in 1978, public ownership in forms of state-owned and collectivized were only legal ownership of property. In industrial sector, the enterprises were controlled respectively under central or local governments, the latter made decisions for the enterprises, the enterprises were not profit seeking economic entities, they were simply workshops to execute centrally set policies.
In 1970s, the discontent of economic situation accumulated constantly, because the defects of central planning system became obviously more and more. Around 1978, the rural reform took place from grass roots and spread quickly, till 1982, the collectivized people commune had to be abolished. In company with the reform, the free market in a certain degree was developed. At the same time, the problem of lack of autonomy in SOE, which led to low efficiency, was also taken into account. Therefore, from 1978 on, the Communist Party, under the leading of Deng Xiaoping, put hand to solve the SOE problem. From 1978 to 1984, the efforts of the reform concentrated on giving the SOEs more autonomy by allowing them increased authority over the allocation of their profits, and limited production autonomy. The rest profits could be used either to finance increased investments or to pay bonuses to employees. Besides, administrative control over SOEs was decentralized to local governments. But as the prices were still centrally determined and SOEs did not realize the cost of their fixed and working capital, the reforms did not improve much the resource allocation or the utilization of capital. (1)

1.3 Contract is the main form in the second phase.
From 1985 to 1992 was the second phase of the SOE reform. The policy named Zhenqi Fenkai (separating government from enterprises), the central government decided to turn SOEs into truly independent production and management entities, and stipulate that enterprises must take responsibilities for their own profits and losses by means of contracts and leasing. The common practice was: the enterprises sign a manage contract with the responsible authorities. Under the contract, enterprises were not only allowed to retain the extra profits after they had fulfilled the contracted quotas, but also allowed to arrange their own manage including dismiss or enroll personnel. By the end of 1987, about 80% of state-owned industrial enterprises adopted the contracts system. In 1991, over 90% of the previously contracted enterprises signed the second round of contracts. Meanwhile, based on the first round contract practice, the content of the contract was improved; the authority introduced more rational norms to examine the fulfillment of contract. A multiple index system was formed, which included economic efficiency index, development potentiality index and management index etc.
During this period, the practice of shareholding reform appeared as well. This new creature was adopted at first by village enterprises, which come from the former collective enterprises. The village enterprises were always short of capital, so they raised money from the village residents. Along with the reform moved forward from countryside to cities, the shareholding system was also introduced into SOE reform. Early in April 1984 Chinese reform committee organized a seminar to discuss the exploitation of shareholding in SOE reform. That conference drew a conclusion that shareholding system is a rational way to restructure the collective and state owned enterprises in cities. In July the same year, the first shareholding company after Chinese liberation—Beijing Tianqiao department store (shareholding) came onto horizon. Till 1991, there were already 709 state owned enterprises restructured along shareholding system. These enterprises included industrial sector companies, trade companies, also financial enterprises, construction enterprises etc.
Besides, in the second phase of SOE reform, tax system had also a great change. Instead of handing in profit, SOEs paid a certain portion of tax according to their revenue level. The State and local government collected tax separately; this measure was implemented to loose the relation between SOE and local authority.
However, during this period, the SOEs showed their weakness in competition with the new developed private companies, joint venture companies and township and village enterprises, because at one side, the manager of SOEs didn’t get use to do business in a free market, the attitude of waiting, relying on government and begging for help were widespread. At another side, the relationship between government and enterprises became more complicated, because, although under the contract system, the government have no right to interfere in the SOEs management, they still rely on each other: the government need the SOE to have good performance in order to settle surplus labor forces and continue to play a role in maintain the social stability, at the same time, to increase the government’s revenue to deal with the raising infrastructure investment and other expense. The SOE, on the other side, need the protection of the authority, in order to obtain more chance to get loans, subsidizes or orders in government arranged projects. Besides, even though most of direct subsidies form the state have been cancelled, many domestic savings were also channeled into SOEs, because banks had been directed to take up the role of making "loans" to SOEs instead of the state. The total of non-performing loans has grown so large that it started to endanger the banking system. (2)

1.4 The MES is the key point in the third phase of the reform and the achievements
Form 1993 on, the reform moved into the third phase, the aim called setting up the modern enterprises system (MES). The Third Plenary Session of the 14th Party Central Committee in November 1993 proposed: "It is the inevitable request for market economy to set up modern enterprise system, it is a direction of the SOE reform of China. "This indicates that SOE reform enters a new stage of system innovation. In 1994 the State Council determined to chose 100 state-run large and medium-sized enterprises to launch an experiment to implement restructure along MES. The basic demands of the experiment were to "define right and responsibility clearly, separate government function from enterprise management, and operate scientifically”. Those requirements were in fact the basic characters concerning modern enterprises system. Along the policy of building MES system, and based upon the development of the whole economy, there were many achievements reached in the third phase.
1) By 2000, most large and middle scale SOEs have set up modern enterprise system tentatively. According to the investigation in 2473 enterprises of State Statistics Bureau 2000, 2016 enterprises have restructured, account 81.5%. Among those enterprises, 603 turned to Co., Ltd., accounts for 29.9%; 713 were restructured to limited companies, accounts for 35.4%; the number of solely state-owned company is 700, accounts for 34.7%. As for their management, 82.2% established shareholders’ meeting, 95.1% established the board of directors, and the board of supervisors has been established in 84.5% of enterprises. Therefore, corporate governance structure has already taken shape in SOEs.
2) In this phase, during" the Ninth Five-Year Plan", China began to adjust the state-run economic layout strategically, The idea called Zhuada Fangxiao (to grab the big ones and let the small ones go). The reform for medium and large SOEs focused on fostering a batch of trans-regional, inter-trade, inter-ownership big SOE groups through reorganizing, transforming, uniting annex. In 1997, the number of national large-scale enterprise groups expands to 120. For instance, under approval by the State Council, China Petrochemical Corporation, China Oil and Natural Gas Corporation were predominated to two large groups, whose assets of enterprise group reached in 40 billion dollars, such measure improved the intensification degree and international competitiveness of Chinese petrochemical industry greatly. Another example was in telecommunication market, six major SOE telecom groups (China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, China satellite communication, China railway communication) were predominated. So a new form of competition in field of communication service took shape.
By the end of 2001, national key enterprises add up to 2710, total assets up to 1,280,450 million dollar. Among 179 super-huge enterprise groups, whose business income is over 500 million dollar, there are 165 state-owned or state-holding enterprise groups.
3) During this phase, separating government function from enterprise management was strengthened harder than before. Chinese government started administrative organization structure reform in 1998. Through this administrative restructure, the departments of the State Council reduced from 40 to 29. At provincial level, government departments reduced from 55 on average to 40, about 20% departments were simply. Some departments were cancelled totally. The cancellation of government departments indicated that the SOE stay in the charge of specialized official department manages changed completely. Meanwhile, the administration rank of the state-owned enterprise were cancelled, some administrative approval procedure were simplified.
4) To relieve the social burden of SOEs, re-employment service center were set up to shunt the redundant staff of enterprises. It has been a great difficult problem of the SOE reform from begin on that enterprises are overstaffed. It is an important measure of revitalizing the SOEs to dismiss and distribute workers. In June 1998, the state council required all regions to set up re-employment service center system. National Ministry of Labor and Social Security emphasized that the laid-off worker in SOEs must 100% enter the re-employment service center. The re-employment service center determined to provide serve functions such as grant basic living cost, withhold social insurance, organize job training and launch employment etc. for laid-off worker. The fund, which used for ensuring laid-off worker's basic life and paying the social insurance premium, come from financial budget, enterprise as well as societies (namely form contribution or from laid-off worker themselves), each part bears 1/3 of the whole fund. The re-employment service center provides service for laid-off workers for at longest 3 years. When they can’t reemploy after this period, can still enjoy unemployment compensation or the society relieve according to relevant regulation.
In this reform stage, re-employment service center played a positive role on maintain social stability. From 1998 to the end of 2001, 25,500,000 laid-off workers emerged (Fig 3) in national state-owned enterprises, among them more than 17 million people were reemployed, more than 3 million people retired. However, re-employment service center was only a transitional institute, because the SOE had to still take responsibility to settle down those laid off workers. According to a new policy, all laid-off workers after 2001 are treat as unemployed and have to enter free labor force market.
5) In order to extricate SOE from predicament, especially to resolve the problem of high liability-asset ratio, by December 2000, 580 SOEs began to implement debt-to-share swap, that mean the enterprises’ debt were recalculated as share (enterprises’ equity), so that the interest burden of SOEs were lightened. In the process, most of unperformed loans would be calculated as shares, which would be gathered and supervised by a new state commission-- State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). Till 2001, the total amount of money of debt-to-equity swap account 40,5 billion dollars, and the result was that the average asset-liability ratio of debt-to-share swapped enterprises dropped from more than 70% to under 50%.

2. The main problems left in the reform
After three steps reform, the SOE acquired more autonomy, as we have seen, the whole economic circumstance were also better. But because the reform did not touch the socialism idea from begin on, thus the transition of ownership of SOE was left basically unchanged, the defects of SOE could not changed completely. In the context of China’s economic reforms, there are still a few problems in SOE sector existed and have also a deep influence.
First of all, the interventions from the government still maintained influence in SOE. The administrative relation between enterprise and government is still remaining. Even the Local State Assets management office was established, it belong to the same bureaucratic system like former authorities. It can appoint or remove senior executives of SOEs. If enterprise applies to the broad structure, the directors in broad are appointed by it. The office has also a say in the transfer of holdings, corporate mergers, closures or other major changes to the enterprises, it is also charged with the tasks of clarifying property rights and settling disputes (3) . It seemed that the state assets supervisory takes the place of former authority above the SOEs. Moreover, the local government maintains still strong power in local enterprise, they rely on each other as we discussed above. So long as the enterprises are state-owned, whether they are big groups, stock companies or little entities, it is difficult to shaking off the directly or indirectly control from the government.
Secondly, because of the long tradition, enterprises are still taking responsibilities for their employees in pension, medical areas, therefore the so-called “soft budget constraint” cannot be given up completely. Although we have discussed that the Chinese government has managed to start re-employment plan, SOEs also take a part of the fund to support the plan. Correspondenly, government had to shoulder some failures resulted from the mismanagement of SOEs’ and avoid from their bankruptcy, in order to prevent the enterprise from bankrupcy and thus endanger the social stability.
Thirdly, the management of SOEs has low quality compare with other economic sectors. Though SOEs have produced an average 10% growth rate in the value of industrial output during the period 1978-98, this rate is considerably below the average of other sectors. The problem has two reasons. One of them is lacking of the inner incentive of the managers. The SOE managers are not entrepreneurs in the true sense, but bureaucrats at any rate. Their appointment by the government not basically according to their managerial capability, but based on their rankings in the bureaucratic hierarchy through the politic system. Another factor concerns the supervision within the SOE, it is also lacking in most cases. In practice, the position of supervisor in a enterprise is normally taken by staff within the enterprise and in most cases, the position of president of the supervision committee is taken by somebody within the enterprise, who is under the leadership of the directors and managers in his ranks both at work and in the Party. This system makes it very hard for the supervision committee to fully perform its authority (4) .
Fourth, the high liability-asset ratio is also regarded as a fatal problem of SOEs. It was observed, that during the reform period, the liability-asset ratio of industrial SOEs rose from around 11% in 1978 to approximately 65% in 1997. In as many as one-fourth of industrial SOEs, liabilities have even come to exceed assets; these enterprises are in fact insolvent. The World Bank suggests that in debt restructuring may be necessary for the most heavily indebted enterprises to bankrupt. After the implement of debt-to-share swap, the ratio decreased, but the debtor, in most cases are banks, didn’t collect the loan back, so it made the SOE even harder to get new loan for production. (5)
Furthermore, the whole process of the SOE reform companied by a serials of social problems, in compare to some difficulties such as lack or reserve labor force, ageing of the equipments, the most troublesome is the unemployment in large scales. In addition, in rural areas, millions of flowing population has been produced because of the bankruptcy and low profitability of the township and village enterprise. In urban China there are frequent reports about workers’ unrest. Although until now China still maintain a relative political stability, the menace will not fade away in a short time.

吉林省松原市人民政府办公室


松原市人民政府办公室印发关于未参加基本养老保险城镇集体发放生活费工作实施方案的通知

松政办发〔2007〕4号


各县（区）人民政府，市政府各委、办、局：
　　《关于未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作的实施方案》已经市政府同意，现印发给你们，请认真按照执行。


　　　　　　　　　　　　　二OO七年一月二十九日
　　
关于未参加基本养老保险城镇
集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作的实施方案

　　为未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作是完善我市城镇社会保障体系试点的重要内容。按照《吉林省人民政府办公厅转发省劳动保障厅等部门关于未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作意见（试行）的通知》（吉政办发〔2006〕33号）精神，市政府决定，从2007年1月份开始，在全市范围内推进未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作，现制定实施方案如下：
　　一、范围和标准
　　（一）企业范围。2003年12月31日前，即完善城镇社会保障体系试点前，经县级以上工商行政管理部门注册、未参加基本养老保险的城镇集体企业。
　　（二）人员范围。上述企业中于1995年12月31日前，即实行劳动合同用工制度前，经县（区）及以上劳动保障部门办理正式招工手续，在2006年12月31日前达到法定退休年龄，并办理了退休手续，未享受任何养老保险待遇的人员（不包括与原企业已经解除劳动关系人员），从审批下月起，按当地城市低保标准发放生活费，尚未达到法定退休年龄的未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业职工，要积极参加基本养老保险，对距法定退休年龄不足5年参加基本养老保险有困难的，各地可根据实际待其达到法定退休年龄办理退休手续后比照本方案执行，5年以后的新退休人员仍未参加基本养老保险的，生活费发放标准可按当地低保标准一定比例逐年适当递减。
　　二、申报、审批、发放程序　
　　（一）申报。符合领取生活费条件的未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员，企业存在的，由企业主管部门或企业负责统一向企业工商营业执照注册地（以下简称企业所在地）县（区）劳动保障部门申报；已经废业的企业，由退休人员本人持居住地街道证明材料到原企业隶属的当地劳动保障部门申报。
　　1．企业主管部门或企业申报时需提交下列材料：
　　（1）企业营业执照原件，无原件的应提供县级及以上工商行政管理部门盖章确认的书面证明。
　　（2）当地社会保险经办机构出具的企业和个人未参加基本养老保险的证明材料。
　　（3）符合申领生活费条件的名册。
　　（4）申领生活费人员书面申请、居民身份证复印件、职工档案。
　　（5）其他需要提交的材料。
　　2．已退休人员本人申报时应提供下列材料：
　　（1）本人职工档案和居民身份证复印件。
　　（2）企业所在县（区）及以上劳动保障部门正式审批的动用工手续。
　　（3）已办理的退休手续。
　　（4）街道证明材料。
　　（5）其他需要提交的材料。
　　（二）审核。市、县（区）劳动保障部门要依据申报企业和个人提交的档案及相关证明材料对申报人员的资格审核认定。
　　

（三）公示。审核通过的人员名单，由当地民政部门委托退休人员所在地社区居民委员会张榜公布。
　　（四）报批。审核通过并经公示无异议的具备申领生活费资格人员，要登记造册，报当地完善社会保障体系试点办公室批准，同时报市劳动保障局、市民政局、市财政局备案。
　　（五）发放。当地民政部门要按照当地完善城镇社会体系试点办公室批准的城镇集体企业退休人员名册为其本人发放《未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员生活费领取证》，并从批准的下月起以企业所在地低保标准为其本人按月发放生活费。
　　《未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员生活费发放证》实施年审制度，对领取生活费人员实行动态管理，对已死亡人员从死亡的次月起停发生活费，已死亡人员名单要及时反馈给同级劳动保障局、民政局、财政局。再由市里统一汇总后上报省劳动保障厅、省民政厅、省财政厅备案。
　　生活费领取证工本费和社会化发放手续费，由当地财政部门负责解决。
　　三、资金来源和管理
　　（一）资金来源。对未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费所需资金由地方政府负责筹集落实，对发放确有困难的地方，可以提请省财政给予适当补助。
　　（二）资金管理。所需资金由当地财政部门按规定拨付当地民政部门“低保金支出户”，并设“未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费”专户，在支出户内分账核算。民政部门实行专人负责、专户存储、专账管理、专款专用。对省补助资金按规定发放后有剩余的地方，经当地民政、财政部门同意后可转作低保补助资金使用。
　　四、组织领导和分工
　　为未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作坚持属地管理的原则，各级政府必须切实把这项工作纳入重要日程，统一思想，精心组织，合理调配资金，切实加强领导，落实工作责任制，强化监管机制，保证生活费发放工作有序进行。
　　（一）加强领导，认真组织。此项工作要在当地政府领导下，统一部署实施。劳动保障、民政、财政、经委（经贸委）、工商等部门和社会保险经办机构、企业主管部门要各负其责，积极配合，搞好衔接，合力推进生活费发放工作。按照省里要求，市里成立松原市未参加基本养老保险城镇集体企业退休人员发放生活费工作领导小组，组长由主管副市长担任，成员有市劳动保障局、市财政局、市民政局、市经委、市工商局、市商务局、市社保局等部门，日常工作由市完善城镇社会保障体系试点办公室承担。
　　（二）明确责任，搞好分工。各地要结合本地实际，建立和健全发放生活费工作制度，明确各部门责任，搞好分工协作。劳动保障部门负责依据政策对申报领取生活费人员进行资格认定；经委（经贸委）负责对企业是否具有生产经营能力和基本养老保险缴费能力进行认定；民政部门负责生活费发放、相关资料汇总、报送以及制定资金计划和报批等工作；财政部门参与城镇集体企业退休人员资格审核，负责筹集和落实所需资金，并监督资金的管理和使用；工商行政管理部门负责对企业资格进行认定；社会保险经办机构负责对企业和个人是否“参加基本养老保险”进行认定；企业主管部门负责企业申领生活费人员相关资料的申报等工作；各部门分别负责本部门所涉及的相关数据资料的整理、存档、建库及报送。
　　五、工作要求
　　（一）规范操作，加强管理。这项工作政策性强，在操作中要严格执行相关政策。要把好审核、发放关，准确认定企业生产经营状况和缴费能力，认真审查申报手续，把符合条件的人员全部纳入发放范围，同时要防止扩大范围；要把好管理关，建立动态管理网络，健全管理制度，落实各项管理责任。要结合本地实际，制定切实可行的操作方案。对工作中出现的问题，各地要及时上报、反馈。
　　（二）筹措资金，确保发放。各级政府要多渠道筹集资金，确保生活费按时足额发放，决不能发生拖欠。各地要积极借鉴乾安县试点经验，要抓紧完成摸底测算工作，落实资金来源渠道，争取尽早实施，确保今年全面施行。
　　（三）落实政策，鼓励参保。各级政府、相关部门和企业要采取措施，鼓励职工积极参加养老保险。尚未达到退休年龄的职工，可以比照个体劳动者基本养老保险有关规定参加基本养老保险，按规定缴纳基本养老保险费，并最迟从建立职工个人账户时间补缴基本养老保险费，原符合国家规定的连续工龄试同缴费年限。
　　（四）搞好宣传，强化监督。各级政府要坚持以人为本的理念，把维护群众利益摆在首位，搞好政策宣传，增加生活费发放工作的透明度，让群众充分了解和掌握政策，维护群众知情权和监督权。要设立举报电话并向社会公开，接受群众的举报、监督。要积极做好社会稳定工作，对可能出现的问题，要制定相应预案，确保各项工作的顺利开展和维护社会稳定。要建立长效工作机制，健全有关监督管理制度，加强动态管理，杜绝虚报冒领，防止资金流失。对虚报冒领生活费的人员，要全额追回资金，并追究当事人责任。对徇私舞弊、违法乱纪的人员，要依法给予严肃处理。