Less than two weeks before China's once-in-a-decade leadership transition, a top official said economic reforms should center on its state-owned enterprises that have been the major driving force behind the country's explosive growth.

"Facing the current political and economic circumstances inside and out of the country, it is necessary to further promote and enhance the reform of state-owned enterprises, so that they can fully play the leading role in the national economy," said Wu Bangguo, China's top legislator, on Friday.

The remarks were made during his closing speech for a meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, according to the country's second-largest state-run news agency China News Service.

The meeting was held ahead of the plenary session of the 18th Communist Party Congress, scheduled for Nov. 8, when China's once-in-a-decade power transition will take place.

While prior efforts to reform and develop state-owned enterprises have made remarkable achievements, deep-rooted contradictions and problems have yet to be fundamentally solved, said the chairman of the standing committee.

"It is necessary to improve the structure of the flow of state-owned capital," Wu said. "We should promote the capital flow into the important industries."

Wu added that efforts need to be made to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises and improve corporate governance structures.

"We should continue to promote the separation of government administration from enterprise management to enable enterprises to become true market players," he said.

Since 1978, China has endeavored to reform its bulky state-owned enterprises, which once represented nearly 80 percent of China's economy.

According to the Chinese State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, more than 90 percent of state-owned enterprises have become corporations and some of them have been restructured to become shareholding companies.

As of the end of last year, the country had 144,700 state-owned or state-controlled enterprises, excluding financial institutions, with total assets worth 85.37 trillion yuan ($13.55 trillion).

In 2011, the enterprises reported revenues of 39.25 trillion yuan, accounting for 35 percent of total industrial and business revenues, as well as profits of 2.58 trillion yuan, accounting for 43 percent of the country's total. (Yonhap News)