The State Council, China's Cabinet, recently issued an implementation plan to make all central State-owned enterprises corporate enterprises by the end of the year.

The reform restructures SOEs into limited companies or corporations in order to separate their governmental and business functions.

The project is a significant measure to propel State-owned enterprise reform. It aims to promote an effective and balanced governance structure for the central SOEs as well as make them more flexible and market-oriented.

The reform involves 69 central State-owned groups with about 3,200 subsidiary companies.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has drawn up the timetable for the reform. By the end of September all the group companies involved in the reform should report their corporate system reform plan to the commission, and the subsidiary enterprises should report their corporate reform plans to their parent companies. All the parent companies and subsidiary companies should complete their business registration before the end of November.

The project stipulates a series of supporting policies such as land disposal and preferential tax policies. It also makes some requirements on the reform process such as enhancing the leadership of the Party committee, and establishing a modern enterprise system and preventing the loss of State-owned assets.