CANGZHOU, Hebei Province, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Ten
days after the Chinese government raised fuel prices, Vice Premier Li Keqiang
has urged domestic oil producers to increase supplies and asked local
governments to deliver subsidies to affected sectors and people.
"Increasing supplies of fuels such as petroleum and
coal is vital to the steady development of the national economy and daily life,"
Li said during a visit to Langfang and Cangzhou cities, northern Hebei Province.
Li made the tour to research energy production and
supply and to ascertain how affected sectors and people have reacted to the
price rise.
On Sunday, Li visited the PetroChina Huabei Oilfield
Company, Huabei Petrochemical Company, two local pump stations at Gu'an County
and Bazhou City, rural bus stations, a supermarket in Renqiu City, as well as
farmers, urban low-income families and taxi drivers.
Local oil producers told Li they had been running at
full capacity to increase supplies after retail fuel prices were lifted.
Li asked centrally-administered companies such as
China National Petroleum Corporation and China Petrochemical Corporation as well
as local producers to "dig deep into their potential" to substantially increase
oil production and supplies.
He also ordered local governments to deliver
subsidies to farmers, the fishery and forestry sectors, low-income families, the
public transport sector and taxi drivers as soon as possible, and urged them to
step up monitoring of illegal price rises.
The government raised the benchmark retail price of
gasoline by 16 percent and diesel 18 percent on June 20, meaning mark-ups of 0.8
yuan per liter of gasoline and 0.92 yuan per liter of diesel at filling
stations.
Before the rise, soaring world crude prices had
pinched domestic oil refiners, which suffered losses because of
state-controlled, below-cost fuel prices and some halted or suspended production
to avoid further losses.
Short supply has led to long queues of vehicles at service stations in some parts of the country.
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