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SCMP Reporter

The son-in-law of late leader Deng Xiaoping was named a minister in a round of reshuffles announced by the State Council yesterday.

 Wu Jianchang was appointed Vice-Minister of the Metallurgical Industry.

 Mr Wu, husband of Deng's eldest daughter Deng Lin, moves from the presidency of one of the country's biggest industrial conglomerates, the state-owned China National Nonferrous Metals Industry Corporation.

 The ministry might be demoted to a bureau or transformed into a company as part of a plan to streamline the bloated bureaucracy.

 The council announced 11 new appointments and dismissed nine officials.

 Song Chunhua, Mayor of Changchun city, Jilin province, and Beijing Vice-Mayor Zheng Yijun were named as vice-ministers of the Construction Ministry.

 Wu Jie was removed as vice-minister of the State Commission for Economic Restructuring. Xinhua said Zhou Xiaochuan had stepped down as vice-governor of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, 15 months after he took up the post.

 Mr Zhou, director of State Administration of Foreign Exchange, recently became president of the state-owned China Construction Bank.

 Meanwhile, state media said the country planned to shed four million government jobs over three years as part of its boldest effort yet to streamline the bureaucracy.

 It was expected that the number of ministries and Cabinet-level commissions would be cut by a third, leaving 29 out of the current 41.

 A number of super-ministries would be formed by merging ministries and departments. They would include a state information commission, culture work commission and a social security ministry. The China Economic Times said about half of the eight million official-level positions in party and state bodies would be phased out.

 It quoted Wang Dongin, Vice-Minister of the State Commission for Economic Restructuring, as saying the jobs would be axed from a 33 million-strong state payroll that included teachers, researchers and medical workers. Mr Wang's commission and the State Planning Commission are likely to be most affected by the cuts.



Deng son-in-law named minister in State Council revamp