The mainland's state-owned enterprises would be among the world's best companies in seven to 10 years, Li Rongrong said yesterday in his first public appearance since retiring as the head of the country's SOEs last month.
Reforms to hold managers more accountable for their decisions and a greater emphasis on the efficient use of capital and resources had improved the performance of SOEs, the former head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (Sasac) said at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin.
Li admitted that SOEs had an advantage over many private companies, given the government policy preference in market access and procurement contracts.
'I don't deny that unfairness exists in competition,' he said, but added that SOEs had their own unique problems. 'What I suffered from the most was the irresponsible attitude of managers.'
When a company was owned by everyone, he said, no one took responsibility for decisions.
Remnants of the centrally planned economy, many SOEs were weak and on the verge of collapse until a major effort in the 1990s thinned their numbers by closures, mergers and acquisitions.
Sasac was set up in 2003 to represent the state, as the largest shareholder, in the SOEs. During his seven years as the first head of Sasac, Li helped set up governance systems and tripled the assets of 123 central government-owned enterprises to 21 trillion yuan (HK$24.1 trillion).