The National Development and Reform Working Meeting was held on the 18th of December. The meeting noted that new breakthroughs in important reform must be strived for in the five aspects as follows. Steadily promote the price reform focusing on those of resource products; improve refined oil pricing mechanism; implement the integration of key steam coal contract price and market coal price; promote natural gas pricing reform; and improve the tiered electricity tariff policy for residential users. Meanwhile, a working forum to regulate economic operation was held at the same time, which set out deployment to guarantee the transport and supply of coal and electricity this winter and next spring. The meeting believed that there were a number of uncertainties in the steady supply of coal, oil and electricity during this period. Supply may run short in peak times, in certain regions and in certain products. It remains a very arduous task to secure stable and orderly supply.

The Ministry of Finance appropriated nearly 8.6 billion yuan for the 2012 renewable energy tariff subsidy funds on the 19th of December. The funds are to be used to subsidize on-grid electricity generated from renewable energy sources as from the 1st of January, 2012 that have been included in the subsidies directory compiled by the Ministry of Finance, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Board. In accordance with the arrangement set by the Ministry of Finance, the 8.6 billion yuan of electricity subsidy is divided into three categories, namely wind power subsidies, solar power subsidies and biomass power subsidies, each given 5.85 billion yuan, 723 million yuan, 2.23 billion yuan respectively.

The PV industry in China has built up excessive production capacity in recent years. The anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations in Europe and the United States have further worsened the situation of the industry. The State Council held an executive meeting on the 19th and formulated five policy measures to promote the healthy development of the PV industry, including: to accelerate industrial restructuring and technological progress; to regulate industrial development order; to actively explore the domestic market for PV application; to improve support policies, and to give full play to the market mechanism reducing government intervention and prohibiting local protection.