The pace of reform of China's state-owned enterprises and industrial restructuring is currently accelerating under the leadership of Xi Jinping. This research, through the analysis of enterprise competitiveness, business diversification, and industrial concentration, aims to forecast the direction of reform of state-owned enterprises in China and draw implications for South Korea.
This research is comprised of six chapters. Following the introduction, chapter two summarizes the current status regarding the progress of the reforms. Firstly, types and current status of state-owned enterprises are described, and events after the Chinese economic reform are arranged chronologically. Though greatly reduced in number, state-owned enterprises still have less total industrial enterprise operating income and profits compared to private enterprises, meaning the efficiency of management has yet to be improved. The new government under Xi Jinping stated their decision to promote state-owned enterprise reform in the Third Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Party and the two sessions (National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference）of 2014. From this, central focus of state-owned enterprise reform can be summarized as aggressive pursuit of mixed ownership. Cautious and gradual methods are expected to take place through various trial measures, and reform at the level of provincial government is likely.
Chapter three contains the analysis of relations between Chinese corporate governance and performance, using scales such as productivity and profits. Database used for the analysis was from 571 enterprises listed in stock market A from 2004 to 2013. The result of the analysis is as follows. First, human capital makes significantly greater contribution to productivity in private than in state-owned enterprises. On the other hand, state-owned enterprises show greater contribution from physical capital to productivity relative to private enterprises. Second, Chinese enterprises listed in stock market A were found to have a higher ratio of shareholders; and lesser the supervision by State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, greater its profits.
Chapter four assesses how well China's state-owned enterprise have promoted business diversification, among different types of businesses, and whether promotion of diverse business has led to sufficient profitability. First, this study shows that the level of diversification and especially relevant diversification has shown to be increasing, but not irrelevant diversification. Irrelevant business diversification is actually declining rapidly Second, the number of unprofitable, non-profit fields with sales is higher in relevant fields of both private and state-owned enterprises. Third, analysis of sales versus profitability reveals that state-owned enterprises have greater irrelevant fields, while private enterprises have greater relevant fields. In summary, the number of profitable fields and sales are proportional in state-owned enterprises, where as in private enterprises, the relationship is inversely proportional.
Chapter five contains a brief analysis of the correlation between state-owned enterprise reform and industrial policy. Generally, the level of integration in Chinese industries is low and unidentical industry-wise, industrial restructuring such as Mergers and Acquisitions(M&A) are found to be in tune with policies aimed at promoting state-owned enterprises. Likewise, five industrial fields including petrochemicals, automobile, retail business, steel and shipbuilding industry are selected for analysis on 1) current status and future directions, 2) competitiveness based on industrial concentration, 3) directions of private enterprise within industries and 4) implications for South Korea.
This research proposes that the key to state-owned enterprise reform is mixed ownership, and when executed successfully, would bring forth tremendous change in China’s ownership system. State-owned sectors made open and accessible to private capital would disperse management risk, followed by optimization of management and investment policy. Moreover, both business diversification and industrial concentration of state-owned enterprises are expected to occur. As far as diversification of state-owned enterprises is concerned, irrelevant fields of state-owned enterprises would more likely to experience diversification than relevant fields.
Nevertheless, limitations and shortcomings of state-owned enterprises are as follows. First, directions of mixed ownership differs by industrial field and mixed ownership might appear only in some industries. Second, state-owned enterprise reform may place heavy emphasis on state-owned enterprises and possibly favor state-owned enterprises. Generally, limited private capital is rarely considered to be used in taking over absolute share of a state-owned enterprise. In fact, state-owned enterprise is more likely to merge with and acquire (M&A) an internally stable private enterprise during the transition to a mixed ownership.
Implications for South Korea are that opportunity for both intense competition and cooperation coexist. Firstly, South Korean enterprises already in China would enter into more intense competition not only in the Chinese domestic market, as competition with Chinese enterprises would also become more intense in the global market, thereby requiring Korean enterprises to be prepared. Therefore, the need to make provisions for strengthening regulations and  enforcement of laws regarding state-owned enterprise reform is very high. Secondly, globalzation of Chinese enterprises could provide an opportunity for South Korean enterprises for cooperation and as a consequence, would lead to enlargement of the market. Within the industry, growth of Chinese enterprises has led to increased cooperation and it may have a positive impact through bilateral trade and investment expansion.