I'd doubt whether foreign employees would be able to travel and go back to China at present.
Ferrosilicon and silico manganese increase further on the ZCE
China issues new warnings over provincial energy usePublished date: 18 August 2021
Share:China's top economic planning body the NDRC has issued new warnings to some local governments that missed targets to control energy intensity in the first half of this year.
Nine provinces or regions — Guangdong, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Fujian, Shaanxi, Guangxi, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang — have been issued code red warnings after increasing their energy intensity in January-June. These provinces must suspend approvals of new energy-intensive projects for the rest of the year, the NDRC said.
Seven of these provinces, as well as Hubei, also "severely" missed their targets to cap energy use in the period, the NDRC yesterday. Another 10 more provinces were issued less severe warnings after failing to cut their energy intensity by the required amounts.
The NDRC reiterated that China has a binding target to cut energy use per unit of GDP by 3pc this year compared with 2020. But its warnings do not appear to be having the desired effect. The number of provinces that received code red warnings is
up from seven in the first quarter, with Jiangsu, Fujian and Shaanxi added to the list and Zhejiang removed.
It is unclear how flexible the NDRC will be with its targets to control energy intensity and cap volumes, given the low base in 2020 because of the Covid-19 outbreak. Electricity demand growth in most provinces that were issued red alerts exceeded the national average in January-June, resulting in the provinces missing both the energy cap and intensity targets.
Those provinces also have a higher-than-average elasticity factor — growth in power use divided by growth in GDP. The factor in Shaanxi and Qinghai is over 1.9 while in Guangdong and Yunnan it is more than 1.7, far above China's average of 1.28, according to Argus' calculations.
Output controlsChina has been pushing policies to control production of commodities such as crude steel, oil products and ferro-alloys this year, although actual output in key emissions-intensive sectors still increased in January-June.
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