File photo: IC

Beijing plans to transfer the entirety of state-owned enterprises' (SOEs) social security accounts management to residential communities by the end of 2020, in a move that experts say will cut the burden of SOEs to help them build up competitiveness and improve efficiency.

Retirees' personal files, pensions, healthcare files will be detached from the SOEs they worked for and be taken over by relevant departments at their residential communities or towns, according to a notice published on the website of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality on Friday.

Management rules and ritirees' benefits should in principle remain the same, the notice said.

The SOEs will not establish additional programs for retirees' social security management and the benefit standards will not be raised either, read the notice.

The assets that SOEs are currently using to serve retirees, including facilities, places and equipment would be freely transferred to residential communities with the approval of the enterprises, the notice said.

Such human resources reform amid the bigger picture of SOE reforms across the country is in line with new roles for SOEs in a more market-oriented business environment, and will pave the way for SOEs to build up strength and improve efficiency, said experts.

Retirees' social management is an SOE function that is not in accordance with the current condition of social and economic development, Guan Xinping, an expert on social policy at Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

To transfer the function to residential communities will ease burden for SOEs and free up more resources to focus on company operation, eventually improving their competitiveness, Guan said.

The development of communities has empowered them to manage human resources affairs well. Such a transfer has been carried out in many places and has been proven successful, Guan added.