As China tries to fill a pension shortfall, the government ordered SOEs to stop dragging their feet on the mandated transfer of equity to the national social security fund. SOEs managed by the central government are meant to have transferred 10% of their state-owned equity by the end of 2019, though the deadline can be extended to the end of 2020 if companies “really have difficulties,” a document released Friday by several central government departments read. In principle, the deadline for local SOEs is the end of 2020, the document said. The national social security fund is mainly charged with making up for pension shortfalls and is separate from the country’s local government-managed social insurance funds including those for medical insurance and pensions. Lou Jiwei, a former finance minister, told us in March that the equity transfer program aims to help shrink the gap between pension funds’ revenues and expenditures as the population ages and pension payouts increase.
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