A Study On Regulation Reform Of Urban Gas Industry In China

For a long time, urban gas industry has always been a public-spirited utility, being monopolized by state-owned corporation in China. But with the reformation of the Chinese market economy, this traditional regulation system is exposing its proper maladies. A series of reformation in urban gas industry and other public utilities has been carried out since 1990s, while compared with other industries, the extent of reformation in urban gas is the smallest and the high level of conflict is considerably obvious, the reformation is at a standstill. There is still obvious deficiency in urban gas industry. It is important and pressing to push forward the further reformation to be seasoned with the rules of WTO and to perfect the Chinese market economy system. It is pointed out definitely at the 3rd plenary session of the 16th party congress that the reformation in monopolized industries must be pushed forward and expedited at a higher speed. To loosen the restriction on the admittance of the market economy and to bring in the competition mechanism is an important policy guarantee of the reformation of urban gas industry regulation system. In the present time, studies of the regulation system for the monopolized industries by local scholar are focused on the telecom and electric instead of urban gas.In this article, the reformation of the regulation of urban gas industry is investigated from the view of the government regulation theory. Firstly the basic property of urban gas as natural monopolized industry and the regulation system of the government is discussed. Secondly experience is drawn form analyzing the practice of reformation for urban gas in developed countries oversea, and this experience is valuable and utilizable. Thirdly this article goes deep into the current situations of the development of native urban gas, and reveals the maladies of the current regulation system, then points out the objective necessity of the reformation for urban gas to meet the needs of WTO, to across-the-board construct the well-to-do society, to expand the reform extent of the economy system. Finally discussion is on the characteristics of the simultaneous existence of the promotive and inhibitory factors for the competition mechanism of urban gas industry,then we come to the objective guidance of the reformation of urban gas regulation and bring about suggestions for the policy of the reformation.