An engineer assembles an axial-flow compressor at a workshop of the Shaanxi Blower (Group) Co., Ltd., a state-owned enterprise, in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, November 18, 2020. Photo: Xinhua

China will further guide state-owned enterprises (SOEs) toward critical areas related to national security and economic development, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) on Wednesday, signaling China's increasing efforts to ensure national and economic security amid rising external risks.

A meeting of the SASAC, which is under the State Council and oversees China's vast SOEs, stressed efforts to further improve core competitiveness of SOEs, strengthens their core functions, and enhance their technological innovation capabilities, according to a statement on Wednesday.

The meeting also said that the SASAC will promote the concentration of state-owned capital in important industries related to national security and the lifeline of the national economy, in important industries related to the national economy and people's livelihood, such as the provision of public services, emergency capacity building, and public welfare, and in forward-looking strategic emerging industries.

"State-owned capital will be promoted as 'long-term capital,' 'patient capital' and 'strategic capital,'" the meeting noted, according to the SASAC.

The meeting comes as the US and some of its allies continue to step up efforts to contain China's development and threaten China's national security, including pushing for an economic decoupling or "de-risking" and imposing sanctions against China.

China's SOEs have long played a crucial role in supporting not only economic development but also helping safeguard national security. So far this year, as the Chinese economy embarks on a recovery, SOEs, especially the centrally administered ones, are ramping up investment in a bid to lift the domestic economy.

In the first five months of the year, investment by the SOEs administered by the central government reached 1.7 trillion yuan ($234 billion), up 12.5 percent on a yearly basis. Among them, fixed-asset investment excluding that in the real estate sector stood at 1 trillion, up 20.4 percent year-on-year, data from SASAC showed in July.

Global Times