Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Industry and Trade has sent a report to thePrime Minister, proposing a reduction in the prices of electricity for threemonths to help ease difficulties facing production and business in the contextof the ravaging COVID-19 epidemic.
In thedocument, dated April 1, the ministry proposed that in the April – June period,the price of electricity for household consumption of up to 300kWh be cut by 10percent. By so doing, it will suffer a loss of 2.930 trillion VND (about 124million USD).
A cutof the same level was also proposed for production and business customers whichwill set the ministry back by 6 trillion VND. As for the accommodationcustomers, the electricity price for them will be reduced to that of theproduction households and this will lead to a loss of 1.8 billion VND for theministry.
Besides,it also proposed the exemption of electricity costs for concentrated quarantineand treatment establishments related to the COVID-19, the total losses fromwhich will amount to 100 billion VND.
As a result,the ministry’s revenue this year from the sale of electricity will fall bynearly 11 trillion VND.
Itsaid cost-saving measures will be applied within the ministry to help offsetthe losses./.
No electricity price increases until the end of Q2
The Ministry of Industry and Trade has called for no increases in the electricity price until the end of the second quarter at the earliest to support businesses amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.