On The Improvement Of States-owned Assets Management System

At present, diversification and multi-levelness are two prominent features in China's state-owned assets management system. Two views prevail in the choice of the mode of state-owned assets management system: the proposal of"possession and management through different ranks"and the proposal of"exercise of power through different ranks under state unitary ownership".With respect to state assets supervision, despite the fact that the Law of the People's Republic of China on State-owned Assets in Enterprises has defined the nature of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) at legal levels and temporarily solved the disagreement between investors and the supervisors over the definition of state-owned assets, questions remain unresolved regarding SASAC's capability to perform its duties as the investor and the ambiguous definition of central and regional SASACs. In addition, SASAC's rights, responsibilities and benefits as an investor also lack clarification, which is to the detriment of the supervision and management of state-owned assets and the maintenance and appreciation of their value. To all appearances, reform of the state-owned enterprises lies still at the core of China's economic restructuring and China's state-owned assets management mechanism still needs reform before it is fully satisfactory.Stress should be put on the following four aspects in the reform of the state-owned assets management system: First, a unitary multilevel system of investor representation is to be established. On the premise of state's ownership of state assets, the state holding company should be established to fulfill its duties as the investor of state-owned capital. Multilevel state-owned holding companies might also be set up as needed. The investor possesses the complete knowledge system of state-owned assets, and it is capable of directing the investment of various types of state-owned assets investment, thus ensuring the healthy operation of the state-owned assets. Second, the surveillance of unitary multilevel system of investor representation is to be strengthened.Third, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission should be renamed the State-owned Assets Supervision Committee, which shall supervise the operation of the state-owned assets and establish a national unitary surveillance system. The State-owned Assets Supervision Committee should supervise all operating state-owned assets, including financial assets and the operating state-owned assets in institutions, thus forming a surveillance system which is perfect, efficient and unified. Forth, three-level supervision institutions of state-owned assets are to be set up and the relationships between the SASACs at national, provincial and regional levels clarified. They are independent of each other and carry out their own surveillance, while in terms of operations the lower level SASAC is subject to instruction of its superior.