Four of China's biggest state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are seeking top executives globally, an effort by the Chinese authorities to introduce more foreign brainpower to help upgrade management of the SOEs.

The headhunters are China Shipping (Group) Company, China Chengtong Group, China Metallurgical Construction (Group) Corporation and Sino-coal International Engineering Group.

The first three are each offering a deputy general manager position, while the last one is looking for a chief accountant.

All four positions are open to foreigners, according to a press release issued Thursday by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), the state supervisor of the 191 central SOEs and the organizer of the campaign.

Apart from the four enterprises, another 18 central SOEs will also take part in the recruitment campaign to find the right senior executives, although they require applicants to have Chinese nationality.

The 22 enterprises will offer 23 senior management positions, all either deputy general managers or chief accountants.

The campaign reflects a faster pace of reform in the SOE chief appointment scheme and will introduce more outstanding people to SOE management teams, SASAC said.

Basic criteria for the applicants include familiarity with the international market, work experience at management level and foreign language skills.

Applicants will compete on an equal basis and take unified exams.

Details of the offers are to be announced next Monday.

It is the second time the Chinese authorities have organized a global recruitment campaign for the central SOEs, whose top executives are normally directly assigned by the central government.

Last September, six central SOEs offered seven senior positions to the public, which attracted 463 applicants, including 17 foreigners and many overseas Chinese, SASAC sources said.

At the time, China National Foreign Trade Transportation (Group) Corporation opened a deputy general manager position to foreign applicants, although it finally chose to hire a mainlander who had been working in a Hong Kong company.

Li Rongrong, minister of the SASAC, has said that regardless of the recruitment result, fairness and transparency could be guaranteed.

"The result is only based on the capability of the applicants, no matter if they are Chinese or foreigners," he said. "The purpose is to help the enterprises get the most suitable managerial staff from a wide range of choices."

Meanwhile, to provide more incentives, it has been promised that the salary of these new SOE chiefs should follow the standard in the labor market, which is much higher than those directly appointed by the authorities, he said.

The seven executives recruited in last year's campaign were offered market-standard payment but declined to accept it, instead choosing the same pay as others in equal positions, insiders said.

Analysts said the opportunity to work in the biggest SOEs, which offers a broader stage, mattered more to the newcomers.

China aims to build 30-50 big enterprise groups that are internationally competitive.

In preparation, and to attract sufficient talent reserves, it kicked off reform of the central SOE chiefs' overall performance evaluation and payment systems at the end of last year.

So far, the general managers and presidents of 180 central SOEs have signed duty contracts with the SASAC, which acts on behalf of the state as the investor in these enterprises, to promise profit growth.

The average salary of enterprise chiefs is set at around 250,000 yuan (US$30,200) per year. But they may take a pay cut, or have their income doubled or even tripled, depending on the profitability of the firm and a number of other indices.

The reform will continue.

"The new performance evaluation system has put more pressure on us," said Zhang Hongbiao, general manager of the China Aviation Industry Corp II.

But apart from assessing the performance of a SOE chief within his or her term of service, the new system is crucial to the long-term and sustainable growth of the enterprise and finding appropriate successors, he said.

(China Daily June 25, 2004)