Low price level creates a good opportunity for water, electricity and price rise

Introduction: Nowadays, the price of water, electricity, gas and other common products is about to be adjusted And the price level that keeps falling in the near future also brings possibility for the above adjustment Although the reporter's confirmation to the national development and Reform Commission yesterday did not get a positive response, but judging from a series of official recent moves, the state's intention to adjust the price of water, electricity and gas and improve the mechanism of resource price formation has been determined On October 28, Zeng Peiyan, vice premier of the State Council, made a report on "speeding up the improvement of resource price formation mechanism and vigorously promoting the transformation of economic growth mode" at the seminar on resource price reform sponsored by the national development and Reform Commission On the same day, Ma Kai, director of the national development and Reform Commission, said that the price of China's resource products only reflected the cost of resource development, excluding the cost of resource damage and environmental governance caused by development On October 31, Qiu Baoxing, Vice Minister of the Ministry of construction, added that the rise in water prices had not reached the end and could not reflect the real cost In the report, Zeng Peiyan specially stressed that we should "seize the opportunity" when the price adjustment of the two control lines came If we analyze the current macroeconomic background, this "opportunity" may have arrived Since this year, the general level of consumer prices has been falling one after another, which makes it possible to adjust the prices of public goods upward However, more than a year ago, due to the continuous high price level, the national development and Reform Commission issued a notice of "two control lines" to all localities When the monthly month on month rise of consumer price in a place exceeds (including) 1% or the cumulative year-on-year rise of consumer price exceeds (including) 4% for three consecutive months, the local government should suspend the introduction of price raising projects for three months Among the products included in the control scope, water, electricity, gas and other resource public products are prominent This continued until March this year At the same time, preventing inflation is still the key direction of national macro-control It is in this context that the national development and Reform Commission issued a circular to all localities, reiterating the spirit of "two lines of control" Nowadays, the whole price background has changed dramatically According to the analysis of the national development and Reform Commission, since this year, "except that the total level of consumer prices rose 1.8% month on month and 3.9% year-on-year in February due to the seasonal factors of the Spring Festival, the rest of the months have maintained a small growth or a slight decline." Although the general price level of the public product "trust market" to prevent deflation continues to fall, the prices of coal, electricity and oil resources continue to rise Since this year, the national development and Reform Commission has adjusted the price of domestic refined oil six times (including one price reduction), and the ex factory prices of gasoline, diesel and aviation kerosene have been increased by 650 yuan, 550 yuan and 1030 yuan per ton respectively Compared with the same period last year, the ex factory price increased by 17.3%, 16.5% and 27.7% respectively Correspondingly, the price of electric coal (from January to September) is also about 35 yuan higher than that at the end of last year With the implementation of the "coal electricity price linkage" policy in May, the national sales price increased by an average of 2.52 points per kWh As the price of the above products continues to rise, the original price control policy of the state is also under heavy pressure, and the call for price liberalization is increasingly strong What's more, the continuous decline of current prices also needs the support of a rising force to prevent the arrival of deflation "At present, the only thing the government can raise is the price of public and service products." Yuan Gangming, a researcher at the Institute of Economic Research of the Academy of Social Sciences, told the first financial daily that if we look at the prices of CPI sub products, the prices of other types of products are either still falling, or they have reached a relatively high level, and the only ones that can go up are the prices of residential and service products such as coal, electricity and gas "However, raising the price of such products also needs to take into account the affordability of the people." The price adjustment will not be achieved overnight Obviously, the state has taken such problems into consideration In his speech, Zeng Peiyan said in particular that "we should establish and improve the mechanism for protecting the interests of low-income groups, and actively take measures such as social security, financial subsidies, and price concessions to ensure that the actual living standards of the people in need are not affected by the reform." In addition, raising prices and reform mechanisms will not be put in place in one step, because Zeng Peiyan stressed in his speech that "we should correctly handle the relationship between reform, development and stability" and "step by step" Some experts worry that once the above price factors are transmitted to consumer goods, it is likely to push China's economy to the edge of inflation Ha Jiming, chief economist of CICC, also believes that as coal, electricity, gas and other price factors are not reflected in CPI, it is still a priority to prevent hidden inflation All these factors make the reform and price adjustment of the above products will not be completed overnight