China’s central SOEs deliver strong performance

Profits of China’s centrallyadministered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) surged 23 percent from a year earlier in the first half of 2018, official data showed Thursday.

Combined profits of China’s central SOEs totaled 887.79 billion yuan ($133.1 billion) in the January-June period, the Stateowned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said.

In June, the profits of central SOEs increased 26.4 percent year-on-year to a historic high of 201.88 billion yuan, according to Peng Huagang, a spokesperson for the SASAC.

The total revenues of central SOEs stood at 13.7 trillion yuan in the first half, up 10.1 percent year-on-year.

Peng said that the anti-risk capabilities of central SOEs have been further improved in aspects including debts, international operation and environmental protection. “For example, the asset-liability ratio of central SOEs was 66 percent at the end of June, down 0.3 percentage points from the beginning of the year, which exemplifies their increasing capabilities to prevent risks.”

Meanwhile, market-oriented debt-to-equity swaps are being carried out in 18 corporations, with agreements worth over 200 billion yuan having been implemented, thus reducing their liability ratios, according to Peng.

At the conference, he also pointed out that central SOEs are going global and actively engaged in the building of the China-proposed Belt and Road (B&R) initiative. At present, over 80 central SOEs have undertaken 3,116 projects in countries and regions along the B&R routes, greatly contributing to local economic and social development.