SOEs get 54.7-billion yuan boost

China says it will offer support worth nearly 55-billion yuan to State-Owned Enterprises, to help them make it through a global downturn.

China will soon allocate 54.7 billion yuan to centrally controlled SOEs their operational budget for 2009.

Li Rongrong, head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said around 27 billion yuan would be spent on increasing the assets of key SOEs related to the national economy, jobs, and national economic security.

Li Rongrong, Director of SASAC, said, "All the spending will be open to public review. The money is a state asset. It should be spent carefully, and in a more transparent way. All the cities and provinces should use the money on key programs. And capital injection in each new project should not be less than 50 percent."

19 billion yuan of the budget will be reserved for the recovery of SOEs which suffered losses in natural disasters this year.

And around 8 billion yuan will be used to improve the structure and development of SOEs. The spending is also expected to help SOEs fight the impact of the global financial downturn.