The National Development and Reform Commission has taken three major measures to reduce the electricity price for general industrial and commercial enterprises by another 10%.

On April 18, the National Development and Reform Commission held a regular press conference to release the macroeconomic situation. Yuan Da, director of the Policy Research Office and spokesperson of the Commission, said that three major measures will be taken to reduce the general industrial and commercial electricity price by another 10%.

At this year's National People's Congress, the "Government Work Report" proposed specific goals for reducing charges for enterprises in various fields, and the average electricity price for general industry and commerce was reduced by another 10%, which attracted much attention. Yuan Da said that according to the latest tax and fee reduction measures determined by the State Council Executive Meeting on April 3, the National Development and Reform Commission will work with relevant departments to focus on key areas such as energy consumption, logistics, and telecommunications to study and propose key measures to reduce charges for enterprises in 2019. Among them, the main measures to achieve a further 10% reduction in the average electricity price for general industry and commerce on the basis of last year include using the policy space of reducing the value-added tax rate and the collection standard of the National Major Water Conservancy Project Construction Fund attached to the electricity price, strengthening the cost supervision of power grid enterprises, and expanding the scale of market-based electricity transactions.

Judging from the situation in the first quarter of this year, continuous progress has been made in expanding the scale of market-based electricity transactions. According to Yuan Da, from January to March, the country's market-based electricity transactions increased by 24.6% year-on-year, accounting for 26.8% of the total social electricity consumption and 50.5% of the electricity consumption of the operating industry. Among them, direct electricity transactions increased by 40.3% year-on-year, reducing electricity users' electricity purchase expenditures by 13.1 billion yuan. He said that in order to further improve the marketization of electricity transactions, the work related to the comprehensive liberalization of the operating power generation and consumption plan is being studied and promoted.

At the press conference, Yuan Da introduced the latest progress of my country's power system reform. Since 2019, my country's power system reform has continued to advance steadily, and the implementation of the incremental distribution reform pilot and the pilot work of the power spot market have achieved positive results. Among the 320 national incremental distribution business reform pilots in the first three batches, more than 60 pilot projects have been put into operation, and 28 pilot projects have started construction, and the pilot work has made positive progress. In addition, the pilot work of the power spot market is progressing smoothly. The power spot markets in Guangdong, Shanxi and Gansu provinces are carrying out simulated trial operations, which will accumulate experience and improve the system for the next step of expanding power spot transactions. At the same time, focusing on the key issues facing the current spot market pilot, the National Development and Reform Commission has studied and drafted guiding opinions on further promoting the pilot work of the power spot market construction, which is expected to be issued in the near future.

In reporting on the power generation and consumption in the first quarter, Yuan Da pointed out that the national power generation in the first quarter increased by 4.2% year-on-year, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from January to February. The national total social power consumption was 1.68 trillion kWh, an increase of 5.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate fell by 4.3 percentage points from the same period last year. Among them, the power consumption of the primary industry, secondary industry, tertiary industry and residents' daily life increased by 6.8%, 3.0%, 10.2% and 11.0% year-on-year respectively, and the power consumption of the tertiary industry and residents' daily life continued to maintain a rapid growth of more than double digits.