"A thorny point is that some SOEs hold both nonprofit and for-profit assets, and it would be a very complicated and challenging task to divide these assets and then reintegrate them in a bigger scope," said Zhou.

It's important to specify that the two types of enterprises should not invest and operate in an overlapping manner after the classification is completed, he said.

Zhang Xiwu, deputy head of the State Council's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, told the news conference on Monday that the main purpose of promoting SOE reform is to improve the efficiency of SOEs and make them independent market players.

The primary goal of the reform is to achieve decisive progress in major areas of SOE reform by 2020, he said.

SOEs are vital to China's economy. Revenue of China's SOEs totaled 48.06 trillion yuan ($7.5 trillion) last year, and total profit was $2.48 trillion, while the overall assets of SOEs have surpassed $15.7 trillion.