Chinese Premier Presses for Building Modern Corporate SystemPremier Zhu Rongji April 11 urged leaders of state-owned enterprises to learn about finance, science and technology, law, the international market, and the management of transnational companies amid substantial and effective measures to improve the overall quality of managers of state-owned enterprises.He said that the rise and decline of enterprises depends on the quality of their managers, and state-owned enterprises will survive, develop, and expand in fierce market competition by fostering excellent entrepreneurs who are qualified ideologically and politically, good at management, canny and able, and bold and pioneer-minded. Zhu made the remarks in Beijing Tuesday at a panel discussion with participants in a training course for leaders of key state-owned enterprises. The premier, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau, urged state-owned firms to follow the CPC Central Committee's demands on building the modern corporate system. He called on the enterprise leaders to fully recognize the new situation in deepening reform and expanding opening-up, improve their own quality, and be active in learning and utilizing advanced methods and successful experiences in managing modern enterprises. Supervision of state-owned firms should be strengthened and lawbreakers punished, he pointed out. Zhu also urged state-owned companies to widely use modern management technology, methods and means, to learn advanced management experiences from home and abroad, and introduce foreign experts so as to enhance managerial capabilities and lift competitiveness to a higher level. Meanwhile, at a national work conference on the reform and management of enterprises in Beijing, vice-premier Wu Bangguo said on Tuesday that strengthening and improving management is a major part of creating a modern corporate system and also a way for state-owned companies to reduce losses and increase profits. In his speech, Wu urged recognition of the new situation of reform and development of state-owned enterprises, renovation of the managerial system in line with the requirements for building a modern corporate system, strengthening internal management, and stepping up ideological work in these companies in order to deal correctly with the relationship between reform, development, and stability. In 1999, state-owned and state-controlled firms generated 96.7 billion yuan in profits, a record high in years. In the first two months of this year these companies made 15.57 billion yuan in profits, 8.7 times of figure for the same period last year, according to the vice-premier. However, Wu said, some of these enterprises have experienced greater difficulties and their workers are suffering from lowered living standards. At the sametime, some debt-ridden state-owned firms did not withdraw from the market in a timely fashion due to the lack of a perfected social security system, and difficulties in finding new employment for those who had been laid-off, he said. Wu attributed last year's good results of the state companies to their own efforts and favorable government policies. This year, there is little room for the government to help increase profits for these firms by the use of favorable policies. It will be a difficult job for the state sector to reach the goal set by the three-year government program to see the entire sector out of difficulty, he noted. He criticized some state company leaders for failing to change their old concepts and delaying management reforms. Good policies cannot produce good results, if management fails, he stressed. |
| Please visit People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/ |