ABSTRACT
Trial reforms of the old-age pension system began in the early 1980s when government expanded employment channels and encouraged local governments to experiment on the contract system. In 1991, the State Council issued Document 33, 'Resolutions on Reform of the Enterprise Pension System', calling for the establishment of a three-tier pension plan for all types of employees and they would also be required to make their contributions. Overall, in 1991, the pension plan covered 78.4 per cent of the formal employees employed in various types of enterprises. The direction of pension reforms as stipulated in Document 6 of 1995 was to make a transition from the then pay-as-you-go system to a partially-funded system, consisting of both social pooling and individual accounts. With the economic reforms focusing, since the mid-1990s, on the establishment of modern enterprises, restructuring of state assets through the market became the dominant theme in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reforms.
