The Ministry of Industry and Trade has sent a report to the Prime Minister, proposing a reduction in the prices of electricity for three months to help ease difficulties facing production and business in the context of the ravaging COVID-19 epidemic.

Staff at the Hanoi's Bac Tu Liem power company inspect a transformer station
(Photo: VNA)

In the document, 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 10%. By so doing, it will suffer a loss of VND2.930 trillion (about US$124 million).

A cut of the same level was also proposed for production and business customers which will set the ministry back by VND6 trillion. As for the accommodation customers, the electricity price for them will be reduced to that of the production households and this will lead to a loss of VND1.8 billion for the ministry.

Besides, it also proposed the exemption of electricity costs for concentrated quarantine and treatment establishments related to the COVID-19, the total losses from which will amount to VND100 billion.

As a result, the ministry’s revenue this year from the sale of electricity will fall by nearly VND11 trillion.

It said cost-saving measures will be applied within the ministry to help offset the losses.