The story appears on

Page A1

May 7, 2015

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Business » Economy

China set to ease its price controls

CHINA will further lift controls on the prices of commodities and services, the National Development and Reform Commission said yesterday.

Since the previous price catalog was introduced in 2001, nearly 46 percent of the categories and 80 percent of the items have seen reductions, said Xu Kunlin, head of the NDRC’s price department.

The revised catalog will limit price controls to just seven major categories — natural gas, water supply, electricity, special medicines and blood, important transport services, postal services and certain professional services, according to the NDRC.

Under the new catalog, the gate station price of natural gas at the provincial level and below, prices of water supply in major water conservation projects, prices of power transmission and distribution in national and provincial-level regions, as well as prices of professional services such as bank card fees and the required education certificate check for graduates of overseas universities, will be in the hands of the central government.

The catalog was yesterday opened to public comment for a period of two weeks.

China has gradually relaxed its grip on medicine, tobacco, civil explosion materials and equipment, telecom services, rail services and military products, Xu said.

Since the economic and social reform blueprint was unveiled in late 2013, China has taken steady steps to let the market decide as much as it can, in a bid to stimulate market vitality and ensure fair competition. The government’s price control has been limited within major public utilities and services.

The existing price fixing catalog covers 13 kinds of commodities and services which were decided and regulated by the central government.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend