SASAC Urges State Firms to Optimize Overseas Investment and Strengthen Safety After Qingdao Shipyard Fire

The Communist Party committee of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) held an expanded meeting on September 11. The meeting called on state-owned enterprises to consciously plan and advance their international operations within the broader framework of China's opening-up, make coordinated use of both domestic and international markets, optimize the layout of overseas investment, and firmly uphold safety bottom lines, while further expanding cooperation on technology, equipment and standards to achieve mutual benefit and peaceful development.

The meeting required state-owned enterprises to place Party governance in a prominent position across their overall work and embed it throughout all tasks; to tighten and consolidate the chain of responsibility at every level, improve the closed-loop mechanism of responsibility transmission, supervision and inspection, and accountability, and ensure the responsibility system reaches the very bottom; to consolidate and expand the results of education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, better leverage the exemplary and driving role of Party organizations and members in major projects and key tasks, and build a high-quality, professional cadre and talent team; and to strengthen Party conduct and integrity building and anti-corruption work, continuously fostering a clean and upright political environment.

The meeting also stressed that state-owned enterprises should draw profound lessons from the fire at the Beihai shipyard, deeply recognize the extreme importance of workplace safety, and grasp and implement safety work with a sense of responsibility of being "always uneasy."

At about 11:15 a. m. on September 10, a foreign cargo ship caught fire during maintenance at Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Co. , Ltd. under China State Shipbuilding Corporation, killing 25 people. The open flames were extinguished more than three hours later.

After the accident, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed great attention, calling for urgent search and rescue of missing persons and a swift investigation into the cause. He also required all regions and relevant departments to learn profound lessons, thoroughly investigate and rectify all types of fire hazards, implement preventive measures in detail, and resolutely curb major and especially serious accidents.