BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- China will not experience another upsurge in layoffs like the one seen in the 1990s during the ongoing reform to revitalize inefficient and overstaffed state-owned enterprises (SOE), a senior official said Saturday.

"Protecting the interests of SOE employees will be a major task in the next step," Xiao Yaqing, head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual parliamentary session.

The reform will mainly be pushed forward through mergers and acquisitions (M&A), instead of bankruptcies, Xiao said.

Compared to the situation around two decades ago, the SOEs have more financial resources and capable executives to address the problem, he added.

China is propelling the reform by allowing in private investment and encouraging M&A in a bid to revive its hundreds of thousands of SOEs, many of which have become ossified with declining profitability due to a lack of competition.