China is working to tighten its supervision over the nation's power industry, hoping to avoid similar blackouts that plunged millions of Europeans and North Americans into darkness recently.

The nation is amending the Electricity Law for the first time since its introduction eight years ago. One of the major pushes is to strengthen management to ensure the stability of power supplies and to regulate the market.

The government hopes the amendment can be completed by the end of the year.

Additionally, the government is also looking at establishing an emergency-response procedure for dealing with possible power problems.

The calls to create a supervision framework have become increasingly loud since rolling blackouts hit the United States, Canada, France and Italy.

Experts say they cannot rule out the possibility of something similar happening in China, due to its fragile power system. It has become increasingly likely as more than half of the nation has suffered from electricity shortages this year.

And given December's reform separation of power plants from grid firms, the ability to control power supplies -- especially in cases of emergencies -- has been weakened, experts say.

Top government officials, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, have urged power companies and officials to learn from the experience of other countries and set up a crisis-response mechanism as soon as possible.

"One of the lessons we learned from the blackouts in foreign countries is that we should reinforce the supervision of the system to keep uniformed control over transmission and distribution,'' said Shao Binren, vice-chairman of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, the industry watchdog.

Only in this way can prompt action be taken once there are power failures, Shao said.

However, according to experts, the major difficulty is that the commission lacks enough authority to supervise the industry.

Yu Yanshan, an official with the commission's policy and regulations department, said important roles such as approving electricity prices and the construction of power plants are scattered among government departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance, which has diminished the industry watchdog's clout.

"The obligation of government departments and the commission is not clear,'' said Yu.

Yu has called for consolidation among government departments and the commission as soon as possible to better regulate the industry.

(China Daily October 7, 2003)