Dec 29 (Reuters) - China has turned around more than 2,000 loss-making “zombie” and heavily indebted companies in its campaign against poorly performing enterprises, the deputy head of the country’s state assets regulator said on Tuesday. China in 2016 set a goal of eliminating thousands of unprofitable zombie firms - those that have survived on bank loans and local government backing - by 2020. However, it has provided little in the way of a progress report this year as the campaign took a backseat to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, while a string of high-profile defaults by highly rated state-owned enterprises shook the country’s corporate bond market last month. Official news agency Xinhua said in October last year that China had cleared up more than 95 percent of zombie companies and enterprises in extreme difficulty, nearing its goal of phasing out all zombie enterprises by the end of 2020. By the end of 2019, 2,041 firms classed as zombie companies or as suffering from extreme hardship had managed to make up operational losses, Weng Jieming, vice chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (Sasac), was cited as saying by state-run China News. Almost 700 zombie and hardship-hit firms have exited the market, while more than 800,000 surplus personnel have been transferred and resettled, he added. Weng said Sasac would urge central government-run enterprises to consolidate this progress and avoid a relapse into loss-making by plugging loopholes in business management.