(CFP)

Xie Qihua, former Chairwoman of Baosteel Group Corp., China's largest steel maker, has been appointed board chairwoman of the newly launched state asset management company—China Reform Holdings Corp. Ltd.

Xie, dubbed the "Iron Lady" of China's steel industry, is famous for turning a small steel factory into today's mammoth Baosteel during her 28-year tenure at the corporation. Graduated from Tsinghua University in 1966, she subsequently worked for a steel factory in Shanxi Province from 1968 to 1978. She started working for Baosteel in 1978, becoming its general manager in 1994. She became chairwoman of the corporation in 2003 and retired from Baosteel in 2007. She was named one of the 50 Most Powerful Business Women by Fortune magazine in 2002.

China Reform Holdings Corp. Ltd. will focus on reorganizing small state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that are not related to national security or crucial to the national economy. The launch of the new company marks an important move toward an optimized restructuring of state-owned economic entities. Profits of China's SOEs in the first 11 months hit 1.81 trillion yuan ($271.92 billion), up 43.1 percent year on year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Finance on December 17, 2010.