The State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) is to set up two or three regional electricity trade centers on trial basis in some areas of China later this year.
SERC chairman Chai Songyue said the SERC would accelerate the establishment of its regional branches to supervise competition in local electricity markets.
The Chinese government broke up the State Power Corporation, the former monopoly in the country's electricity market, into 11 smaller generating, distribution and logistics companies last December.
The SERC was set up to supervise market competition in the power industry and issue licenses to environmentally qualified operators.
Chai said the SERC was to complete a survey of the assets and liabilities of the 11 state-run operators this year and help them adopt modern corporate governance.
He said China was also accelerating the process of amending the electric power law and drafting regulations on competition in the electricity market.
He said the SERC would experiment with recouping the costs of reducing power plant emissions in the electricity pricing.
(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2003)
