Workers of 6,389 enterprises in Beijing will, starting next week, take a one-week vacation by turns, in a bid to reduce power consumption during peak hours in the scorching summer.

These enterprises will be divided into four groups according to their locations to take the vacation by turns, and the Beijing Municipal Labor and Social Security Bureau will later release plans to solve the issue of salary and allowance of workers involved in the "high-temperature vacation".

"These enterprises are all non-consecutive production enterprises. They adopt a normal 8-hour working system and do not work in three shifts," the report said.

The "high-temperature vacation" has been confirmed by a director of the Food Processing Plant under the Beijing Daoxiangcun Foodstuff Group, a famous food producer in the capital.

"The municipal government has prepared a series of precautionary measures and emergency plans to relieve the pressure of huge electricity demand in the summer," said Chen Tiecheng, of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

And the "high-temperature vacation", from July 15 to August 15, is just one of the precautionary measures, he said.

Other precautionary measures include shifting of the weekend to other working days, also by turns, for these enterprises, so as to balance the power consumption at weekend, which is one million kilowatts fewer than a normal working day.

China may be facing the most severe situation of power shortage since the 1980s, with a gap of 30 million kilowatts between electricity demand and supply this summer, the State Power Grid Company has said.

A total of 24 provincial areas has imposed power brownouts in the past few months.

The Chinese capital used to be carefree about power supply, but may face a hard time this year, according to Beijing vice-mayor Zhang Mao.

"Beijing should also join the national conservation efforts," he said.

The capital, which has 59 percent of its power supply coming from other parts of the country, might impose brownouts this summer as power shortage worsens nationwide, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2004)