State-owned enterprises (SOEs) in New Zealand are registered companies listed under Schedules 1 and 2 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986. Most SOEs are former government departments or agencies that were corporatised. They are responsible to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises. Many other government-owned companies and statutory trading organisations are referred to informally as "state-owned enterprises" although they are not SOEs in the strictest sense. These are also listed here.

Function

The function of SOEs is to operate successfully as a business, as profitable as those not owned by the Crown. The section of the Act defining this is usually interpreted as meaning that SOEs are expected to ready themselves for privatisation, though this is not always the case. Two Ministers of the Crown act as the shareholding ministers in the company. In the case of SOEs these are usually the Minister for State Owned Enterprises (see article for list) and the Minister responsible for the particular company. The Crown is assisted in the running of SOEs and other Crown-owned companies by the Treasury's Commercial Operations group (formerly the Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit).

List of state enterprises

The state enterprises are listed in Schedule 1 of the State-owned Enterprises Act.

State-(part-)owned enterprises

The following table lists entities that are monitored by Treasury, but are not state enterprises (see table above). For a more complete list of government entities and organisations, see Public sector organisations in New Zealand.

Former state-owned enterprises

Former state-owned enterprises come in three forms – those removed from the Schedules of the Act and made Crown entities, those removed and not privatised, and those removed and privatised. Well-known SOEs that became Crown entity companies include broadcasting companies Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

Privatised state-owned enterprises

Privatised state-owned enterprises include:

Former, non-SOE state-owned corporations

Other Crown-owned companies

Other, non-SOE Crown-owned companies are the Crown entity companies. These are the Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), the broadcasting companies Television New Zealand Limited (TVNZ) and Radio New Zealand Limited (RNZ), and the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund Limited.

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