Big state, big profits. If you take out the “zombies” feeding off a diet of subsidies to survive, state-owned enterprises appear to be walking tall across China’s industrial landscape. Last week, buried beneath a mountain of depressing data, was at first glance a set of stellar statistics with revenue and profits from about 90 major SOEs hitting a record high in 2018.“[Net income from] SOEs directly controlled by the central government jumped 15.7% to 1.2 trillion yuan (US$177.6 billion) last year,” a statement from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said. “The combined revenue of these SOEs reached 29.1 trillion [yuan], up 10.1% from 2017,” it added.
