The top legislature yesterday approved a law to safeguard the country's 30 trillion yuan ($4.4 trillion) worth of State assets.

Following years of debate and repeated revisions by the National People's Congress (NPC), the Enterprise State Assets Law will now oversee the capital of nearly 120,000 State-owned companies, including financial ones, and prevent their assets from illegal seizure.

Government statistics show that between 80 billion and 100 billion yuan worth of State assets are lost each year because of mishandling.