China raises fuel, electricity prices

The nation will also raise jet fuel prices by 1,500 yuan a tonne today, the top policy planner said. On July 1, China will increase electricity prices by an average 0.025 yuan a kilowatt-hour, the NDRC said. China will impose temporary caps on thermo-coal prices until the end of this year, it said.

The country must cut energy use by at least 5 per cent for every unit of gross domestic product annually for the next three years to meet its 2010 objective, Yang Tiesheng, director of the commission's energy efficiency division, said at the Energy Efficiency Asia conference in Beijing today.

"It is an extremely difficult target to meet, but I'm optimistic that the government will achieve it by making the utmost effort," Yang said. China has pledged to raise energy efficiency and shift to less polluting sources as global crude-oil prices surge to records and threaten to slow economic growth.

The country cut energy use by 2.62 per cent for every 10,000 yuan ($1,454) of GDP in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, an official at the National Development and Reform Commission said today.

The government aims to pare energy use by 20 per cent for each unit of GDP in 2010 from 2005 levels.

The world's fourth-largest economy expanded 10.6 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the ninth straight quarter of double-digit growth. Driving the expansion were factories powered by dirty coal while the wealth following the nation's economic expansion spurred car sales and fuel demand.

The government is considering a so-called environmental tax, a new levy on auto fuels and changes to existing taxes on natural-resource use, Fu Jing, deputy director of policy and legislation at the State Administration of Taxation, said at the conference.

China may tax the use of products that pollute the environment or aren't energy-efficient, the China Securities Journal reported on Wednesday, citing Vice Finance Minister Zhang Shaochun.

The nation seeks to reduce energy use for each unit of GDP to 0.98 tonne of coal equivalent by 2010 from 1.22 tonnes in 2005, Yang said today. China used 1.17 tonnes for every unit of GDP last year, Xu Dingming, director general of the commission's energy bureau, said in February.