CHINA Mobile Communications Corp has established a board of directors and appointed former general manager Wang Jianzhou as the company's chairman.

CMCC, the parent of Hong Kong-listed China Mobile, also named former deputy general manager Li Yue, 51, as general manager to replace Wang, 61.

The State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has asked all state-owned enterprises to set up a board of directors with a chairman and general manager.

"The new management system is expected to help us protect and increase state-owned assets," said CMCC in a statement.

The step taken by CMCC is also seen to propel the telco to a listing on the domestic stock market, which Wang mentioned several times last year. Shares of the Hong Kong-listed telco edged up 0.89 percent to close at HK$73.75 (US$9.47) yesterday.

China Mobile is the world's largest telco with 539 million users by the end of March, accounting for 70 percent of the country's total mobile subscriber base, according to data from the company and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In the first quarter of this year, China Mobile earned 25.4 billion yuan (US$3.73 billion) in net profit, up 1.1 percent from a year ago.