CCTV.com (News reports on February 22nd): With the continuous reforms over the management systems of the state-owned assets and state-owned enterprises, the past five years have seen a rapid growth of the nation's state-owned enterprises, and the improvement of the quality and economic results of the state-owned economy.

Before the Spring Festival, China Minmetals Corporation had successfully acquired the assets of a large copper mine in Peru, creating a sound condition for the Group to develop on a long term basis.

Zhou Zhongshu, president of China Minmetals Corporation, said: It is a major achievement to better forge our industrial chain and obtain upstream resources.

China Minmetals is a large-sized state-owned enterprise involved in import and export. In the previous years, the Group was in a difficult position amid fierce competitions owing to the inflexible systems caused by long monopolies. Since 2003, the country has adopted reforms over the management system of state-owned assets and formed an institution to supervise and manage the state-owned assets. The investors are responsible for their assets and have exerted more efforts in supervision and evaluation of managers' performances. The enterprises' managers have more pressure and responsibilities while they are given more power for operation.

Li Rongrong, director of the SASAC, said: In the past, many departments were involved in management, but no one was held responsible. Now things have changed so that our state-owned enterprises have been full of vigor. China Minmetals has soon changed the single mode of trading under the new situation. The Group has invested in mines in upstream and set up marketing network in the downstream industry to form a complete industrial chain. The Group has developed in a rapid way.

To strengthen the internal vitalities of the SOEs, China has promoted the reforms over the state-owned company systems and ownership systems in the past five years. Many large-sized SOEs have been listed both in China and overseas. More and more capital has been invested in energy, electricity and telecommunication.

Recall of the Past Five Years

From 2002 to 2007, the number of SOEs had decreased from 158,000 to 110,000 with an annual decrease of nearly 10,000. The average profit had increased by 248.3 billion yuan and revenues had grown by RMB1890 billion yuan each year. The number of SOEs included in the list of global TOP 500 had increased from 11 to 22.