In the face of public doubt, authorities should offer reliable
statistics in their explanation of price hikes, says a signed
article in Beijing News. An excerpt follows:
It is reported that a new round of price hikes for natural gas
is under consideration. It is explained that the current price of
natural gas is so low that it may not help in saving energy.
Every time relevant departments plan to raise the price of a
certain resource product, one of their major excuses is to save
energy. And every time this excuse is given like some kind of
absolute economic truth requiring no verification.
No materials were released to indicate how much natural gas has
been saved from previous price hikes, nor was there any estimation
on the energy expected to be saved from the new price hikes.
It is no wonder the public refuses to buy such a simple
explanation. Nobody wants to waste energy, but the public can only
be persuaded with intelligible and honest statistics.
If the authorities are confident that the price hike will work
to save energy, the first thing they should show the public is the
statistical figures accumulated in the several rounds of price
hikes in water, power, petroleum and coal since last year.
The public will be able to accept the price hike for natural gas
this time when they see statistics indicating that resources
witnessed a decrease in consumption after their prices were raised
or that the reductions confirmed the predictions by the
authorities.
Another important reason for the public resistance to the
raising of the price is that these products are under monopoly and
they are afraid that saving energy is only an excuse to cover the
monopolizing companies' pursuit of more profits.
From this perspective, it is also necessary for the authorities
to offer a detailed explanation to convince the public that they do
mean to save the resource by raising the price of natural gas this
time instead of seeking higher returns.
(China Daily November 3, 2006)