At the 15th Party Congress in September 1997, Jiang announced that reforms of medium-sized and large state enterprises would be accelerated. He proposed two new initiatives: major lay-offs (laid-off workers in China still receive minimal salaries) and divestiture of smaller state enterprises through mergers, leasing, selloffs, and, in some cases, bankruptcy. Since then, the government has indicated it is willing to go much further, announcing plans to sell more than 10,000 of China's 13,000 medium-sized and large state enterprises.[6]