CHINA US Focus - Perspectives shaping the world's most important bilateral relationship

China has postponed a plan to take up to half the profits of state-owned firms for fear of exacerbating an economic slowdown ahead of a sensitive once-a-decade leadership change, government sources and researchers say.

 

The Ministry of Finance had led a campaign to compel state-backed firms to hand up to 50 percent of their profits to the government to meet a funding shortfall in social welfare spending that could help underpin domestic consumption as foreign demand for China's factory output falters.