REFORM OF STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES IN MAINLAND CHINA SINCE THE CCPS 15TH CONGRESS

In September 1997, the CCP's Fifteenth National Congress devised a new orientation for the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with an emphasis on boosting productivity, using the joint stock system to cl arify ownership, and improving the performance of state-owned economic entities. Since then, invigorating small SOEs has been replaced with successfully managing and internationalizing large ones as the most im portant long-range objective. In this article, the author analyzes why Beijing has been reforming SOEs since the 1970s, and why the CCP's Fi fteenth Congress and the Central Economic Work Conference have both ma de SOE reform the core of economic reforms. Special attention will be paid to the following issues. (1) the management difficulties which SO Es face; (2) the strategy for reforming SOEs adopted by the CCP's Fift eenth Congress; (3) problems arising in the course of reform; and (4) essential reform difficulties.