China will accelerate the fully listing of its eligible centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or their main businesses in three years, said Li Rongrong, minister in charge of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) on Friday.

Li's comment showed persistent government support for the listing of central SOEs, although an SASAC statement denied market rumors in mid October of a government plan to fully list 30 central SOEs before 2010.

Most SOEs in oil and chemicals, telecommunications, transportation and metallurgy industries have been fully listed in recent years, said Li at an SOE performance evaluation meeting. In 2006, the total assets of central SOEs hit 12.2 trillion yuan, up 46.5 percent from the figure in 2003. Their revenue stood at 8.3 trillion yuan, up by 85.3 percent.

The assets regulator, set up in 2003 to take control of big state companies, has been cutting the number of major SOEs by promoting mergers and acquisitions and allowing poorly performing state firms to go bankrupt.(One U.S. dollar equals to 7.46 yuan)

(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2007)