The complete marketization of industrial salt is just around the corner

The reporter learned from the seminar on state-owned enterprise monopoly, public interest and the rule of law established by the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on December 17 that the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have formulated a salt industry reform plan that will be submitted to the State Council recently. Approval. The main content of this program is to eliminate the salt franchise system and thoroughly liberalize the management of industrial salt. The monopoly existing in the field of industrial salt other than “two alkalis” (soda ash and caustic soda) will be completely broken.
According to Chen Guowei, supervisor of the Supervisory Board of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and director of the Salt Industry Management Office of the State Economic and Trade Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have carried out many investigations on the development of the salt industry in recent years under the urging of the relevant departments of the State Council. Understand the reality of the monopoly of the salt industry, and fully understand the problems brought about by the monopoly of the salt industry to the entire national economy and social development, and on this basis completed the reform program.
Officials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told reporters that this program of the two departments is by far the most thorough reform scheme for the salt industry. This program will completely separate the administration of the salt industry from government to enterprise, and the local Salt Administration will separate from the salt industry company. Have law enforcement power. The local salt companies will compete with other companies on the same stage as the main players in the general market. At the same time, it has completely eliminated the implementation of a salt franchise system for more than 10 years, breaking the monopoly of industrial salt, especially the “alkali” industry salt, and allowing salt products to enter the market as general commodities. This reform plan will be submitted to the State Council for approval at the beginning of the year and early next year, and will be implemented as soon as next year.
According to report, as early as 1995, the former State Development Planning Commission and the former State Economic and Trade Commission jointly issued measures to improve industrial salt supply and sales and price management, and the management of industrial salt for "two alkalis" has been liberalized. However, some salt management departments have used the law enforcement power granted by the salt franchise system to monopolize industrial salt other than “two alkalis” under the pretext of preventing industrial salt from impacting on salt, which has seriously damaged the industrial salt production enterprises, operating companies, and downstream users. The legitimate rights and interests and caused a lot of judicial disputes.
According to Mao Xiaofei, an assistant researcher of the Institute of International Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in 2008, the country consumed 58 million tons of salt products, including 8 million tons of salt, 40 million tons of industrial salt for “two alkalis,” and 1,000 tons of industrial salt for “two alkalis”. Ten thousand tons. Due to the monopoly, the price of industrial salt other than “two alkalis” is 2 to 3 times higher than that of “two alkalis”. The implementation of the reform of the salt industry system will squeeze out monopoly profits and reduce the cost of billions of dollars for the industrial salt downstream industries.