Different meanings of monopoly in China

Comments on Sun Tianfu “Consumer angst over reform of China’s age-old salt monopoly”, 13/02/2010, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/02/13/consumer-angst-over-reform-of-chinas-age-old-salt-monopoly/

Noted that this is a translation, I would like to point out that some context may be missing.

The monopoly the author talks about is meant to be State monopoly, but not the normal monopoly in economics where there is only one firm to supply a product or in an industry.

As the article mentions that there is a salt industry association and there were at least 28 major companies in the industry.

In this case, it is still unclear how the State monopoly works, given that there also appears to be private companies, as the article mentions.