BEIJING - China rolled out new rules on Thursday to evaluate the performance of the heads of centrally owned enterprises to better determine their payment.

The new rules take a differentiated approach to evaluating the performance of centrally owned enterprises with different business missions, according to a statement released by the country's top watchdog for state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Central SOEs with major business in fully competitive sectors such as electronics and textiles will be mainly evaluated based on revenue and profits, return on investment and competitiveness. They are also encouraged to implement corporate social responsibility measures.

For those in telecommunications, aerospace and other strategic sectors related to national security and economic pillars, the evaluation priorities will be their contributions to national strategy, maintaining national security and stable economic growth, developing strategic sectors and implementing key projects as well as achieving reasonable economic returns and maintaining asset value against depreciation.

Central SOEs that serve the public welfare will first be evaluated based on their social contributions, especially product and service quality, cost control, operation efficiency and supportability. Third-party evaluation will be introduced to improve impartiality.

The top SOE watchdog will reward or punish central SOE heads based on company performance, which will be the basis for their payment and a key reference for promotion.

Payment for central SOE heads consists of basic annual salary, performance-based salary and bonus. The latter two are closely related to company performance, according to the statement.