The president of China’s largest petrochemical producer Sinopec Corp, Wang Jiming, declared his retirement over the weekend, state media reported Monday.

Sinopec assigned Wang Tianpu, 43, a senior vice president, to succeed Wang and rule Asia’s largest refiner.

"This is a normal leadership reshuffle. It’s a normal case of younger people succeeding senior ones," it quoted Chen Tonghai, chairman of Sinopec Group, the state-owned parent company of Sinopec Corp., as saying.

Sinopec’s change in management is conducted after the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) adopted strict rules last December to force large state-run enterprises to comply with the government’s age policy. According to SASAC’s requirements, presidents of companies equivalent to ministry level are to leave their positions at the age of 65 years. Sinopec belongs to a vice-ministry-level company, with the age ceiling of 60.

In recent months, similar retirements of presidents were announced by such Sinopec’s common-leveled companies as China Telecom, China Unicom and China National Cereals, Oil and Foodstuffs.

Sinopec, a listed company of Hong Kong, New York, London and Shanghai stock exchanges, confirmed the information of Xinhua News that Wang Jiming, will remain vice-chairman of the board of directors.

Wang Tianpu is said to be "a professor level senior engineer and well-experienced in the production and management of the petrochemical industry."