It would be wise of the government to take extra caution when it urges state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to buy back their shares from the stock market. This effort can indeed raise share prices of SOEs and even activate the bourse. But if the buybacks are not executed carefully, the SOEs can lose their money, or worse, be entangled in debt.

The argument for buybacks is logical enough, and that is to prevent the index price of shares to plunge even