Electricity regulatory fees, distribution prices rejected

The top legislative body’s  Standing Committee has requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to amend the draft Electricity Law towards excluding such fees and prices from its stipulations.

NA Vice Chairman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan argued that electricity regulatory was the job that had to be done by a state management body and  electricity distribution price did not belong to the list of prices that were regulated by the state.

Therefore, she said the Standing Committee agreed not to include the fees and prices in the Electricity Law.  

Phung Quoc Hien, chairman of the NA’s Finance and Budget Committee, said the fees should not be collected as they would cause strong protests from the public.”

On defending the draft, MoIT Deputy Minister Hoang Quoc Vuong said almost all countries collected electricity regulatory fees to serve the operations of the authority.

He argued that the fees needed to be collected to attract qualified workers in order to ensure a well-operated and competitive power market.  

“The Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam (ERAV) carries out many public services. In the future, ERAV would be separated from the MoIT to ensure the objectiveness and transparency in managing the power market,” he said.

Vuong said the fees would be collected from power plants based on their electricity output traded on the market. 
        
ERAV’s job is to devise trading regulations in the electricity market and supervise trading activities to ensure equality and transparency and supervise the power prices.   

Vuong said power distrubution and other services comprised just 25 per cent of power production costs. However, he said the public always protested against any power price hike because they did not fully understand the pricing structure of power production.

“When information is transparent, consumers will know how much each price is. This will ease pressures for the electricity sector whenever electricity prices are increased,” Vuong said.