China is moving to de-politicize management of its lumbering state-owned enterprises by letting corporate boards, rather than the government, appoint senior executives. Overhauling SOEs, which account for about 20 per cent of economic output but are more indebted and less profitable than privately-owned counterparts, is a central component of the government’s efforts to revamp an economy growing at its slowest pace in 25 years. A pilot project in 2014 chose five SOEs whose boards of directors would be allowed to choose top managers. Now a cabinet task force has approved an expansion of the pilot to include three to five additional groups, Economic Information Daily, a daily newspaper owned by the official Xinhua news agency, has reported, according to the Financial Times.

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