The Chinese government is pushing for the restructuring of major state-run news portals - including cctv.com and xinhuanet.com - to allow them to "establish a modern enterprise system," launch initial public offerings (IPO) and abandon the "iron rice bowl" concept.

Ten major news portals are involved in a pilot restructuring project: the websites of state broadcasters China Central Television, Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, Beijing's qianlong.com, Tianjin's enorth.com.cn, Shandong's dzwww.com, Shanghai's eastday.com and Zhejiang's zjol.com.cn among others.

The websites are currently affiliated to news organizations run by central and local governments.

According to a symposium on the restructuring work Monday in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, the restructuring plans for people.com.cn and xinhuanet.com have been approved.

The pilot project, initiated last October, covers shareholding reform, establishment of a modern enterprise system and IPOs to "strengthen the competitiveness" of the news portals.

According to the symposium, the website operators have actively engaged in the development of search engines, cell phone news services, cell phone TV services, Internet TV, e-commerce, online cartoon games and other new media areas, which have strengthened their capacities.

The operating income of people.com.cn and xinhuanet.com have witnessed "big growth," the symposium said.

Domestic commercial news portals like sina.com.cn and sohu.com are listed overseas.

The step is part of Chinese government's efforts to reform China's cultural industry in a bid to promote Chinese media and cultural enterprises' global influence and boost the nation's soft power.

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2010)