2,000 money-losing SOEs face bankruptcy
( 2003-09-01 14:07) (Shanghai Daily)
More than 2,000 State-owned enterprises (SOEs) on the brink of insolvency are expected to go bankrupt within five years, said sources from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).
This is an important step in the country's State-owned assets restructuring process, Monday's China Daily quoted an anonymous official as saying during the Mayors' Summit Forum held over the weekend in Beijing.
Many of these companies are SOEs in "sunset industries", and have suffered long-term losses due to poor management and outdated skills and technologies, he said, adding that both foreign and private sector companies will be allowed to participate in the bidding for takeover of such bankrupt companies.
The official also expressed his concern that the policy of allowing these loss-makers to go bankrupt will make China's employment situation much tougher.
"Further bankruptcy will make things extremely tough for redundant workers, and will likely exacerbate China's urban unemployment problems," the China Daily quoted the official as saying.
The number of people presently employed in the country's SOEs is 50 million, as against 71 million five years ago.
From 1995 to 2002, a total of 7,798 SOEc went bankcrupt. But SASAC said that at the end of 2002, there were still 159,000 State- owned or State-controlled industrial and commercial enterprises.
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