TRANSFORMING THE MANAGEMENT OF MAINLAND CHINA STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES

For several decades, the state-owned industrial sector in mainland Chi na has achieved very poor economic results. The Peking (Beijing) gover nment fears that the failure of the state sector will threaten the pub lic ownership system as a whole and, in particular, put state-owned en terprises at a disadvantage in the international market after mainland China joins the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As par t of an effort to revitalize the state sector, Peking published in Jul y 1992 the ''Regulations on Transforming the Management Mechanism of I ndustrial Enterprises under the Public Ownership System.'' These Regul ations grant state-owned enterprises autonomy in fourteen areas, in th e hope that they will become market-oriented before the end of 1993. H owever, the task of transforming enterprise management has encountered many problems and produced some adverse side-effects.