China launches global talent search for company bosses

China's government has announced a global talent search to fill top posts at 12 major state-owned companies in its latest effort to turn huge but inefficient government enterprises into global competitors.

Communist leaders want to build up 30 to 50 state companies as national champions in fields from oil to banking to airlines.

Some are among the biggest in their global industries, due to their protected position in China's huge market, but authorities acknowledge they lag behind foreign rivals in skills and efficiency.

State industries have hired managers from abroad, but yesterday's announcement by the cabinet agency that runs China's biggest state companies was the most high-profile recruitment effort to date.

The State Asset Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) wants "candidates from home and abroad" to help strengthen companies, said a two-page advertisement in the China Daily, the main government newspaper aimed at foreign readers.

State companies, such as China Telecom and PetroChina, are working hard to become efficient and profitable. But they face tensions between those efforts and frequent Communist Party mandates for costly initiatives, such as investing in poor regions.

New management recruits will have to defer to political decisions, said Albert Louie, a veteran business consultant in Beijing.

"Recruiting talent does not mean giving them authority," said Louie. "The ultimate decisions still depend on the government."

Jobs advertised yesterday included general managers of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, the China State Construction Engineering Corporation and car-maker Dongfeng Motor.

Some said Chinese citizens were preferred, indicating that companies want Chinese-born executives working abroad or at foreign companies in China.

Others said that they would consider managers of any nationality.

Asked whether SASAC wanted only Chinese-born executives, a woman who answered the phone at its headquarters and would give only her surname, Wang, said, "Every position has its own criteria. If it does not specify, it means everybody can apply."

Last year, the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China announced a worldwide campaign to recruit managers and said it would consider foreigners. After a six-month search, AVIC hired six Chinese executives.

Mr Louie pointed to Dongfeng's current managers as a possible model of the balance that Beijing hopes to achieve.

He said: "They are loyal to the party, and yet they know how to run companies of that size."

The solicitation quickly drew hundreds of comments on internet chat boards. On one major website, Sohu.com, the 800 comments were briefly led by one posting that referred to the state companies' habit of handing out jobs to relatives of well-placed Communist Party and government officials.

"They are doing this because the sons and daughters of the leaders are now coming back from their overseas studies," it read.