Home > Government-owned corporation
This article is about government owned businesses (" public business") chartered for a public purpose. They may resembles not-for-profit corporations as they have no need or goal of satisfiying the shareholders with return on their investment through price increase or dividends. Its sole goal is to provide some kind of good or service for the public.Today, one goal goal of a government owned corporation is usually to attempt to avoid the perceived worst excesses of centralised governmental planning and control (compare nationalisation, command economy) by placing such an entity at "arm's length" and adopting/adapting some of the perceived efficiencies/democratisation of corporate structure and governance such as separate Boards of Directors with independent (external) members.
In the United States, businesses that are government owned include Amtrak and the United States Postal Service. Many states have government owned businesses for operations as well. Generally speaking, a statute passed by a legislature specifically sets up a government owned company in order to undertake a specific public purpose with public funds or public property.
In monarchical CommonwealthThe Commonwealth of Nations is a voluntary association of independent sovereign states, mostly formed by the United Kingdom and its former colonies. It was formerly known as the British Commonwealth (or British Commonwealth of Nations , and many still cal countries country-wide government corporations often use the style " Crown corporationIn Commonwealth countries a Crown corporation is a state-controlled company or enterprise (a public corporation). Crown corporations, in theory, operate on a day-to-day basis at arm's length from the political control of government. Direct control by gove". Notable exceptions include both the State-Owned Enterprises and the Crown entitiesA Crown entity is a type of organisation that forms part of New Zealand's state sector. Most crown entities come under the following subtypes: Crown-Owned Companies (CROCs) some, but not all registered companies wholly owned by the government Crown Resear in New ZealandFor alternative meanings, see New Zealand (disambiguation). New Zealand is a country formed of two major islands and a number of smaller islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. A common Mori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa popularly translated as Land. Examples of Crown corporations include the CBCCBC redirects here, as this is the most common use of the abbreviation. For other uses, see CBC (disambiguation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation commonly known by the abbreviation CBC is Canada's government-owned television network and radio network. in CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe and Air CanadaAir Canada is Canada's flag air carrier and recognised as one of the world's safest airlines. It is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Air Canada has several regional partners, including Air Canada Jazz, Air Labrador, Air Georgian, and Central Mountain Ai before it underwent privatisation. Cabinet ministers (Ministers of the Crown) often hold the shares in such public corporations.
At the level of local government, territorial or other authorities may set up government corporations such as " Local Authority Trading Enterprise s" (LATEs).
In Japan, Japan Post is partially owned by the goverment, but is about to get soled to the public during the following years (following 2004). JR, NTT and Japan Tobacco was formally owned by the government.
