At a meeting of the State Council, China's Cabinet, on Saturday, Premier Li Keqiang stressed that the centrally administered State-owned enterprises must "lose weight and gain fitness".

By losing weight he means to cut the redundant administrative levels of the centrally administered SOEs. Most of the SOEs have five to nine administrative levels, which means the decision-making process is excessively cumbersome. Li said he expects the administrative levels to be three to four within three years.

During the same period, the administrative staff of corporations and other institutions registered under these SOEs should also be cut by about 20 percent, so as to increase their efficiency.

While losing weight in this way, the SOEs are also expected to gain fitness. That is they are expected to increase their profit-making capability. Within three years they are expected to make an additional profit of 100 billion yuan ($15.2 billion). While the losses incurred by subsidiaries are expected to decrease by 30 percent by the end of 2017.

Li also called on centrally administered SOEs to exit from loss-making non-core businesses so as to concentrate on their core competitiveness.