Beijing has set fresh guidelines for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), a target of recent complaints by China’s major trading partners, by advising the companies to operate like normal business entities and to continue to cut excessive steel and coal production capacity.
The directives mark a departure for the government from a previous policy of making the state behemoths “bigger and stronger” in favour of a softer tone, just weeks after trade ministers from the US, EU and Japan – in an obvious swipe at China – jointly blamed SOEs for market distortions.