CHINA Railway Construction Corporation has been approved as a promoter to set up the China Railway Construction Company Ltd, paving the way for its listing on the mainland stock market, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration revealed on Tuesday.
China's Company Law stipulates that the promoter of a joint stock company must subscribe to all the shares to be issued by the firm.
The new company will inherit major assets of the promoter and take project contracts as its core business. Other business includes survey and design consultation, industrial manufacturing, real estate development, capital operations and logistics.
Chairman Li Guorui was reported earlier this year to have expressed a wish to list the corporation, which is the dominant Chinese firm in the overseas construction market.
Established in 1948, the corporation, the world's seventh largest construction contractor, posted 150 billion yuan (US$20.1 billion) in turnover last year and was entrusted with a number of well-known projects including the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Shanghai Maglev line.
The government has accelerated the listing of large state-owned enterprises mainly in the oil and chemicals, telecommunications, transport and metallurgy industries.
On October 2, Li Rongrong, minister of the SASAC, said the next three years could see the full listing of more eligible centrally administered state-owned enterprises.
SASAC, the assets regulator, set up in 2003 to take control of big SOEs, has been cutting the number of major SOEs.