Will electricity prices be reduced for hotels, motels, and tourist villas?
Tourist accommodation establishments will enjoy a new electricity price mechanism equal to the production electricity price, much lower than the current business electricity price.
According to the second draft of the Prime Minister's Decision regulating the structure of retail electricity prices, the group of customers of tourist accommodation establishments such as hotels, villas, apartments, and tourist motels will be transferred from business electricity consumers to production consumers.
According to the explanation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, this adjustment is to implement the Politburo's policy on developing tourism into a spearhead economic sector.
In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Trade also proposed to adjust the average electricity price of the production customer group, increasing the proportion of off-peak retail electricity price for this group from 4 - 8% compared to the average electricity price to compensate for the shortfall in retail electricity price due to the conversion of tourist accommodation establishments to production electricity users, which will reduce the average electricity price compared to the approved level. |
| Accommodation facilities will enjoy much lower electricity prices than at present. |
Specifically, according to calculations by Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN), adjusting customer groups causes EVN's electricity sales revenue to decrease by about more than VND 1,858 billion (2016 data) and about VND 2,630 billion (corresponding to expected commercial electricity output in 2018).
In addition, since currently, the electricity price for off-peak hours is much lower than the average retail electricity price (from 52 - 56%), it is possible to study the adjustment of the off-peak hour price for the production customer group to compensate for the reduction in the average retail electricity price.
Commenting on the draft, the Ministry of Finance said that in reality, there are tourist accommodation establishments (hotels) that provide other services such as: restaurant services, entertainment areas, sports complexes, stalls, etc. that all use electricity. Therefore, it is necessary to study and provide guidance on the application of electricity prices for this group and other tourist accommodation establishments to avoid problems arising during the implementation process.
At the same time, to ensure the principle of encouraging electricity use during off-peak hours and limiting electricity use during peak hours to avoid overload, the Ministry of Finance proposed a detailed assessment of the adjustment of off-peak hour prices for production customers.
Meanwhile, the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises recommended that the Ministry of Industry and Trade carefully consider adjusting the increase in electricity prices, especially electricity prices for production in the current period because increasing electricity prices will increase business costs, affecting the stability and development of production and business of enterprises. On the other hand, increasing electricity prices will also increase the prices of goods, affecting the target of keeping the consumer price index (CPI) at no more than 4% as set by the National Assembly for 2017.
