China will accelerate the reform in the monopoly sectors, said a senior official from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) in Beijing Wednesday.

Li Rongrong, minister in charge of the SASAC, said at the International Merger and Acquisition Summit Beijing 2003 that China will introduce competition into monopoly sectors to broaden the market access for both domestic and international investors.

The government will allow eligible enterprises of various ownership to invest in the monopoly sectors, Li said, while improving the institutional mechanism for the opening-up of the sectors to foreign capital.

According to him, the state ownership has an excessively strong presence in some sectors, such as the processing industries and common competitive service industries where the market mechanism plays quite well and competition is heated.

The fact that state-owned equities take too big stakes in limited liability companies and share-holding companies will have a negative impact on the establishment and perfection of corporate governance and the realization of "equal stock with equal rights and interests," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2003)