After a belated entry to college, he worked for a government research institute, a government-run company and then the Communist Party school.

The new Parliament will also need to come up with an effective economic program that privatizes clerical and government-run companies and attracts increased foreign investment and trade.

India's leading stock index stumbled badly on Friday amid widespread fears that a new government led by Sonia Gandhi and backed by left-wing parties would slow recent changes and halt the privatization of government-run companies.

In British Columbia, Canada, the provincial government is considering a rule to limit lump-sum severance payments to 24 months' pay for executives ousted from government-run companies and agencies.

Park Seung, executive director of the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, said the next step would be to seek a Korean buyer or to consign the bank to a government-run holding company.

In North Korea this year, government-run companies won more freedom to invest their foreign exchange earnings in production.

Colonel Quaddafi appointed an American-educated economist as prime minister, tacitly encouraging him to loosen the state's grip, privatize government-run companies, and allow market forces to shape the economy.

Unemployment is 20 percent, mainly because Mr. Kostov, heeding Western prescriptions, shuttered 110 of 140 unprofitable government-run companies.

The secretariat's solution is to cut government spending and subsidies, privatize government-run companies and find new sources of cash - even by issuing Brunei's first government bonds.

They predict that Venezuela's oil industry, with a leaner government-run company leading the way, will soon churn out 3.1 million barrels daily, matching the pre-strike level.