Huang Shuhe, a deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) spoke about the difficulty of State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) reform. Huang said, for an enterprise to develop, it has to travel light. SOEs still carry many heavy burdens, such as retired workers and companies running social security. Huang said that during the 2008 financial crisis, none of the central government enterprises laid off employees, although all the Western multinational companies laid people off. This was to maintain social stability. Huang believed that the reform of SOEs still faces many difficulties, as the government has yet to transform its functionalities and the social security mechanism for 5-6 million retired workers is not in place.
Source: China News Service, March 14, 2013
http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2013/03-14/4643414.shtml