Profits of China's central SOEs rose 2.1% in 2020

Net profits of China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) rose 2.1 percent year on year to 1.4 trillion yuan ($216 billion) in 2020, official data showed on Tuesday.

Nearly 80 percent of central SOEs' net profits expanded, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) revealed at a press conference.

Central SOEs secured a record net profit of 176 billion yuan ($27 billion) in the month of December. Since the second half of the year, SOEs' monthly net profit has maintained double-digit growth for six consecutive months.

The country's 97 central SOEs raked in 30.3 trillion yuan in combined revenues last year, down 2.2 percent year on year, Peng Huagang, spokesperson for the SASAC said.

The fixed-asset investment of central SOEs, excluding property investment, rose 1.9 percent year on year to 2.8 trillion yuan in 2020 despite the adverse impact of COVID-19, according to the agency.

In addition, central SOEs took on the role of reducing the financial burden on medium-sized, small and micro enterprises by reducing or exempting rents totaling some 7.5 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) and reducing tolls by more than 5 billion yuan ($0.8 billion).

More efforts have also been made in deleveraging SOEs to reduce financial risks.

In 2020, the debt-to-asset ratio of China's central SOEs dropped for the fourth consecutive year to 64.5 percent – 0.5 percentage points down from the beginning of 2020.

At present, the SASAC is working on a three-year reform plan for SOEs to improve their efficiency and governance system.

(With input from Xinhua)