Chinese Vice-Premier Huang Ju said Monday China will strengthen the reform of state-owned enterprises and quicken the pace of restructuring the state-owned sector.

In his written instructions to a national meeting held by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the vice-premier said greater efforts should be made to adopt share-holding reform for innovative systems and mechanisms.

The vice-premier said China must quicken the pace of cultivating a number of major companies with self-developed intellectual property rights, renowned brands, and international competitiveness through the restructuring.

That will help optimize the distribution of the state-owned resources and enable the state-owned sectors to play their leading role in the country's economic development, said the vice-premier.

He called for efforts to improve the country's state-owned asset management system to prevent the losses of the state assets. Huang spoke highly of the progress China had made in the reform of state-owned enterprises and state-owned asset management mechanism in the past year.

China's state-owned economy plays a leading role in the key sectors of the national economy despite the rapid development of private and overseas-funded economies since 1978 when China began to reform and open to the outside world.

The non-state economy in China has accounted for about one third of the national economy and state-owned assets have begun to withdraw step by step from some competitive sectors and improve its influence and competitiveness in essential sectors.

(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2006)