SOE subsidies to end

China Daily reported that the State Council decided Wednesday that the time had come to end subsidies for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), moving China's economy closer to the "socialist market" model ". China Daily said subsidies had already stopped in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian and that subsidies that had continued were limited to helping cash strapped enterprises finance lay-offs. By April 2004, China had closed 3,377 insolvent SOEs through administrative intervention and "resettled" 6.2m employees, the paper said, spending US$5.96bn in the process. Allowing state banks to write off SOE-related bad loans added another RMB223.8bn in to the bill.