FIGURES released by Beijing yesterday showed that the Chinese Government was still struggling to put the overheated economy under control while the efficiency of the state-owned sector was still poor.
Statistics released by the State Statistical Bureau showed that half-year industrial output had increased 15.8 per cent from last year, reaching 754 billion yuan (HK$673.32 billion).
But state enterprises continued to lag behind other sectors of the economy in the six-month period this year.
According to the bureau, state-owned industries reported a slow 4.4 per cent growth in the half-year period, compared with 20.3 per cent in the collective sector and 28.9 per cent by private and foreign-owned enterprises.
The bureau claimed that a series of measures taken by the central Government had yielded results and state enterprises were improving.
However, the difficulties of state-owned enterprises were the focus of a recent national conference called by the State Planning Commission to investigate remedies to save state enterprises and report on the economy.
According to a report by the Xinmin Daily, economists and officials who attended the conference believed runaway prices remained the biggest threat to the national economy.
