China's electricity shortage will relieve to some extent this year, said a Chinese electric power official in Beijing Friday.

The whole shortage situation, however, will remain unchanged, which it requires a fairly long period of reconstruction, said Shao Bingren, vice chairman of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC).

Fifty million kilowatts of power generators were put into production last year, and this year will more generators will be around, Shao acknowledged. Construction needs time, and so electricity supply situation is not very optimistic, he said.

Since January this year, he added, the seriousness of electric power shortage has been reduced though the scope of areas with insufficient electricity has somewhat narrowed.

Overall, Large-area electricity shortage was replaced by seasonable and periodic shortages, he said.

In the wake of high-pace growth of national economy, Shao said, the demand for electric power in China has kept growing in the past two years, and this causes electric power shortage over large areas. 

Chinese government also decided not to raise the electricity price for its residents home use as well as use in agriculture this year.

China launched a mechanism last year to link the electricity price changes with the coal price fluctuations, but the mechanism applied only to the price of electric power for industrial use, said Shao Bingren.

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2005)