Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang said Thursday state-owned enterprises (SOE) should continue playing the leading role with more reform and technological innovations and make more contributions to growth as the country faces economic hardship.

Speaking at a conference on the supervision and administration of state-owned assets, Zhang urged the SOEs to further expand domestic and international markets, develop self-innovation capabilities to raise competitiveness and deepen reform to increase vigor.

At a time of economic hardship, SOEs should assume the responsibility and continue playing the leading role to ensure a sound and fast economic growth, said the vice premier.

He also said it is necessary to strengthen management and supervision of SOEs so that they would take responsibility for preserving and increasing the value of the state assets.

Zhang demanded all SOE leaders and managers to accept supervision and scrutiny from various sides.

Li Rongrong, director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) under the State Council, said that profits of SOEs which are supervised by provincial state assets watchdogs dropped 12.3 percent in the 11 months to November this year.

SASAC figures showed profits of provincial SOEs and enterprises mainly controlled by these SOEs were 274.4 billion yuan (39.2 billion U.S. dollars) from January to November, while sales revenue grew 22.9 percent to 5.8 trillion yuan.

Profits of SOEs directly under the central government's supervision dropped sharply by 26 percent to 683 billion yuan in the same period, with a sales volume of 10.8 trillion yuan, up 20.2 percent from a year earlier.

The tax revenue from both provincial and centrally administered SOEs stood at 1.27 trillion yuan, up about 20 percent.

"It's difficult to maintain growth as the outside environment was not good," Li said.

He also urged management of SOEs to give priority to employment stability and refrain from cutting payrolls, saying SOEs should shoulder more responsibilities in the face of the international financial crisis.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2008)