A similar story can be heard from Fujian Electronics and Information Group.

When the company was founded in 2000 after a merger of local State-owned electronic companies, it was assessed as having 780 million yuan in negative equity. Almost all the 150 member firms were in debt.

In 2004, the group began to attract private capital, with private shareholders injecting flexibility and new management practices into the SOE.

Last year, the revenue of Fujian Electronics and Information topped 22 billion yuan, up 98.5 percent from 2014. The annual compound growth rate reached 25.68 percent.

The reform of SOEs has also brought significant change to the economy of the whole province. The total profit of SOEs in Fujian reached more than 25 billion yuan in 2017, up 95.5 percent from a year ago.

Yu Weiguo, Party chief of Fujian, said earlier this year that the province would stick to its new development philosophy, optimize its regulatory system and deepen reform of SOEs to promote high-quality development.