The OECD's work on the corporate governance of state-owned assets falls under the remit of the Working Group on Privatisation and Corporate Governance of State-Owned Assets.  This Group replaced the Advisory Group on Privatisation in 2000, renaming itself to better reflect the scope of its activity in relation to the issues facing member countries. The Working Group serves as a forum for the exchange of experience on specific technical issues related to privatisation and state-owned enterprise reform.

In 2002, the OECD Steering Group on Corporate Governance asked the Working Group to develop a set of non binding guidelines for corporate governance of SOEs, with the view to making them a complementary instrument to the revised OECD Principles of Corporate Governance. The Guidelines are based on and fully compatible with the Principles, but are explicitly oriented to issues that are specific to the corporate governance of SOEs. After two years of extensive consultations, the OECD Guidelines on Corporate of State-Owned Enterprises  have now been adopted by the OECD Council.

The Working Group will continue to:

• monitor, analyse and disseminate member country information and data on privatisation policies, programmes, methods and results of privatisation, state-owned enterprise reform and public/private sector partnerships;
• Serve as a pool of expertise from which member and non-member countries can draw, in the process of designing, adjusting or implementing their reform programmes;
• Guide the process of dialogue on these issues with non-member economies.

To date, there have been six meetings of the Working Group on Privatisation and Corporate Governance of State-Owned Assets and in October 2004, the Working Group also hosted two consultative meetings, one meeting with representatives from Ministries and State-owned institutions in key non-member countries  and the other with key representatives from Ministries and state-owned enterprises in member countries , Members of Parliament and State Audit Bodies.   All of these meetings have provided valuable input in the drafting of the Guidelines.

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