BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s State Council has appointed a female deputy minister at its market regulator to head the anti-trust bureau, the human resources ministry said on Monday, as the government steps up a campaign to rein in big corporations.
Gan Lin, currently deputy minister of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), rose to prominence earlier this year for her role in the anti-monopoly campaign.
The statement announcing her appointment also for the first time referred to SAMR’s anti-trust unit as the National Anti-monopoly Bureau.
The change in name and seniority of the bureaucrat in charge could herald an upgrade in the anti-trust bureau’s status.
Urged on by President Xi Jinping, the once low-profile SAMR made headlines this year with a push to root-out and penalise anticompetitive behaviour, particularly in the vast online “platform” economy.
Reuters reported in October that China was considering boosting the bureau’s status.
A higher ranking would help antitrust investigators gain resources when examining mergers and acquisitions, sources have said.
(Reporting by Cheng Leng, Yingzhi Yang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Ed Osmond & Simon Cameron-Moore)
