The Theoretical Logic, Institutional Barriers, and Optimization Directions for State-owned Enterprises in Driving High-quality Economic Development

The world today is undergoing major changes unseen in a century. The new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing in depth, and innovation is increasingly becoming the primary driving force for economic development. Against this backdrop, promoting high-quality economic development has become the main theme and focus of China’s economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The key to achieving this goal lies in the deep integration and coordinated efforts of scientific and technological innovation, industrial innovation and institutional innovation. State-owned enterprises, as a vital pillar of the national economy, have unique advantages in leading original technological innovation, building a modern industrial system, and ensuring the stability of industrial and supply chains. They are the backbone force in fostering and developing new growth drivers. However, the systems and mechanisms of state-owned enterprises still face constraints such as a low level of modernization of governance, the absence of innovation incentives and fault-tolerance mechanisms, poor ecological coordination, and a mismatch in talent structure. To break through the development bottleneck, it is necessary to deepen the reform of the systems and mechanisms of state-owned enterprises: build a modern governance system, improve the innovation incentive and fault-tolerance mechanism, reshape a data-driven and collaborative efficient industrial ecosystem, and strengthen the construction of high-end innovative talent teams, so as to fully release the core driving force of state-owned enterprises in high-quality economic development.