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In the face of public doubt, authorities should offer reliable statistics in their explanation of price hikes, says a signed article in Beijing News. An excerpt follows:

It is reported that a new round of price hikes for natural gas is under consideration. It is explained that the current price of natural gas is so low that it may not help in saving energy.

Every time relevant departments plan to raise the price of a certain resource product, one of their major excuses is to save energy. And every time this excuse is given like some kind of absolute economic truth requiring no verification.

No materials were released to indicate how much natural gas has been saved from previous price hikes, nor was there any estimation on the energy expected to be saved from the new price hikes.

It is no wonder the public refuses to buy such a simple explanation. Nobody wants to waste energy, but the public can only be persuaded with intelligible and honest statistics.

If the authorities are confident that the price hike will work to save energy, the first thing they should show the public is the statistical figures accumulated in the several rounds of price hikes in water, power, petroleum and coal since last year.

The public will be able to accept the price hike for natural gas this time when they see statistics indicating that resources witnessed a decrease in consumption after their prices were raised or that the reductions confirmed the predictions by the authorities.

Another important reason for the public resistance to the raising of the price is that these products are under monopoly and they are afraid that saving energy is only an excuse to cover the monopolizing companies' pursuit of more profits.

From this perspective, it is also necessary for the authorities to offer a detailed explanation to convince the public that they do mean to save the resource by raising the price of natural gas this time instead of seeking higher returns.

(China Daily November 3, 2006)