(Yicai Global) Oct. 18 -- China's State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the main shepherd of the country's wayward state-owned enterprises, jointly held a conference today with China Beijing Equity Exchange and Shanghai United Assets and Equity Exchange to promote 274 mixed-ownership reform projects in central and other state-backed companies.

The scheme seeks to coax over CNY200 billion (USD28.3 billion) from private investors and further spur ownership restructuring of the country's clunky, noncompetitive SOEs.

Among the projects promoted are those relating to strategic, newly-emerging sectors, with the 104 in information technology, new energy, new materials, energy conservation, environmental protection and manufacturing of high-end equipment making up 38 percent of the total. These initiatives seek to bring in over CNY45 billion in private capital. More than 30 pilot projects for mixed-ownership reform in seven significant sectors, namely, electricity, petroleum, natural gas, railways, civil aviation, telecommunications and the arms industry, aim to entice another CNY30 billion.

The proportion of equity to be unlocked by placing these 274 SOEs on the block is also diverse, with many freeing up shareholding rights, even yielding a controlling stake, and 65 granting over half their shareholding, or about one-quarter of the total.

The special platform dedicated to mixed-ownership reforms of central enterprises that the Beijing and Shanghai equity exchanges have jointly built officially debuted this morning. This nerve center will issue policies, laws and regulations, rules for transactions and information on mixed-ownership reform projects in a timely fashion as bait for various classes of investors.

The Chinese government began to promote mixed-ownership reforms in 2013 to improve state-backed companies' competitiveness and inject new vitality into their often moribund structures and workings.

Various Chinese provinces and cities have thus far instituted over 5,000 mixed-ownership reforms of state-run firms, and these have acted as magnets for more than CNY600 billion in private funds. The tally of those carried out by central enterprises has hit 3,359, and they introduced over CNY900 billion in non-public financing from 2013 to last year. 

Editor: Ben Armour