Guangdong Province announced on 4 Sep that it would begin charging additional electricity tariffs on 11 energy-intensive industries.
Under the new policy, copper and lead smelters, printers and dyers, producers of coke, plate glass, paper, alcohol, fiber, monosodium glutamate, leather and electric plating will be required to pay an additional tariff ranging from 0.05 yuan to 0.2 yuan for energy produced from the beginning of Sept. until December 31st 2010.
Beginning in 2011, these tariffs will be raised to between 0.1 yuan to 0.3 yuan. The policy is aimed at curbing excessive production capacity from the heavily-polluting industries mentioned above.
The provincial government said Guangdong's zinc smelters and producers of steel, cement, electrolytic aluminum, iron alloy, calcium carbide, sodium hydroxide and yellow phosphorus have been required to pay additional power tariffs since 2008.