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Strict rules to manage overseas assets on cards

By Li Fei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-07 08:04

The government should quickly work out relevant regulations to better supervise the growing State-owned overseas assets, according to a senior State assets regulator.

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"With the implementation of the 'go out' strategy, the scale of the overseas assets held by State-owned enterprises is growing daily, making it imperative to work out the relevant rules to manage these overseas assets in a legal and orderly manner," said Li Wei, deputy director of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

Li made the remarks to executives from 24 Chinese companies operating in Singapore and Australia during a recent trip to the two countries in late April. The trip was primarily designed to elicit opinion and suggestions on the proposed overseas assets supervision rules.

This is the second time in a month that the senior State-asset regulator has made such remarks, highlighting the government's urgency in the matter.

Li said the main entity responsible for managing the overseas assets are parent companies who made the investment and they should put in place proper work procedures and accountability mechanisms to better supervise their assets abroad.

The proposed overseas asset management regulation, Li said, "will take into consideration the difference of the industry and the specific country in which each individual company operates" while assisting State-owned firms to go abroad and increase the value of their overseas investments.

The amount of overseas assets owned by companies under the direct supervision of SASAC, which has 138 of the country's largest State-owned enterprises under its watch, touched more than 757.6 billion yuan by the end of 2006.

The number is now believed to have already crossed the 1 trillion yuan mark, experts and media reports said.

Calls for a tighter oversight of the State-assets have been growing, especially after some of them reported huge losses due to internal management irregularities, such as Singapore-listed China Aviation Oil's $550 million in losses from its speculative oil derivative trading in 2004 and China Eastern Airlines' 6.2 billion yuan loss from derivatives last year.