China grid opens up to private investment

The State Grid Corp of China, the country’s dominant power grid operator, will open two of its business sectors to new investors, including private and non-state companies, state media said on Tuesday.

The two sectors, which cover distributed power grids and electric vehicle charging equipment, have an estimated market value of 200 billion yuan ($US32 billion), the official news agency Xinhua quoted State Grid representative Wang Yanfang as saying.

Successful investors will help State Grid build new electric vehicle charging stations in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei in northern China and the Yangtze River Delta – a prosperous region in southern China that is made up of Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, China Business News said in a separate report.

The move is part of Beijing’s latest effort to promote state enterprise reform and increase private participation in China, where the main parts of the economy remain in the hands of large government-owned conglomerates.