Gemba expresses reservations over rumored electricity price hike
TOKYO —
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, a Lower House member representing the Fukushima No. 3 district, has expressed reservations over whether politicians should be able to instigate a more than 10% hike in the price of electricity. He said Thursday that the government had established a policy of not raising electricity prices, and that the policy should not be undermined.
Earlier this year, Gemba, then state minister in charge of national policy, headed the government’s environment and energy conference, which announced an interim report on Japan’s new energy strategy, aiming to decrease the number of nuclear reactors over the next 40 years, as well as stating that electricity prices should not be raised.
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yoshio Hachiro must approve any request from utilities to raise prices. Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) faces a massive compensation bill over the March 11 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and rumors of a 10% price hike have been rife.
During a joint interview with media organizations earlier this week, Hachiro stated that no such request has yet been made, although he promised to strictly review any such request by TEPCO.
Should the price increase be carried out, it would be the first of its kind in Japan in 31 years.
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16 Comments
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1
smithinjapan
"Hachiro stated that no such request has yet been made, although he promised to strictly review any such request by TEPCO."
BS! The 'strict review' will be whether to say 'shikataganai' or 'shouganai'. TEPCO will raise the price in order to get money for their salaries and any left over for the 56,000 yen per family for sixth months pay-out.
1
JapanGal
Absurd. We should not pay to bail out TEPCO
1
zichi
TEPCO should be banned from all business except in dealing with the nuclear disaster. The government should move a team into TEPCO to take over the running. All assets that can be sold, should be sold. TEPCO assets are about ¥15,000 billion. The cost of compensation for victims of the nuclear disaster will run into trillions of yen.
Like all power companies TEPCO received grants or tax breaks to build Fukushima. For years the company made a huge profit from the plant and then along came Mar.11.
In the end, the taxpayer will probably have to pay the compensations.
It's a bad time to hike power costs which will also increase the cost of manufacture.
All power companies owning nuclear reactors should be made to pay into a "nuclear disaster fund".
1
ExportExpert
Tepco will raise the prices at some stage to help pay for its failures, but any rise should be illegal .
1
Jan Claudius Weirauch
I just read somewhere on Facebook that the ex-tepco president got 500 million yen retirement allowance after stepping down. (irony on) I really don't mind if the raise the price of electricity by 30% or so! (irony off)
1
zichi
Total remuneration for the president and 20 other directors of TEPCO, came to ¥900 million ($8.9) million in fiscal 2009, the last period for which figures are available," an average of ¥45 million ($445,000).
1
Foxie
I have the impression that they raised the prices already. Yesterday I was flipping thru the electricity bills. In May, July and August, I had exactly the same consumption but the price was over Yen 200 higher in August than in May. I am looking forward to their explanation.
1
fds
tepco should be put into bankruptcy and run under a trustee for as long as it takes to pay off all damages arising out radiation contamination with interest. as a monopoly, there is guaranteed profit. they should not be using such profits to fund an advertising budget larger than Sharp's or paying elite level salaries..
1
cleo
Foxie, if your bill details the charges you'll see ［燃料費調整」at the bottom of the list. Mine has gone from minus over ¥1000 in January to minus ¥570 in May to minus ¥150 on the last bill. Also the 太陽光促進fee kicked in from April.
0
Darren Brannan
The Tepco shareholders meeting last week saw an announcement that Tepco had been raising prices for electricity for ten years without a substantial reason for doing so.It has made a lot of Tokyo residents very annoyed.
0
zichi
I would be willing to pay an extra ¥100 per month, I live in Kansai, if the money was used to help the people in Fukushima.
0
Utrack
If the incinerators that are just burning trash were utilizied to create electricity ( trash to steam power plants ) You would not need TEPCO and their NPP's so much so that they can raise prices to cover their own butts. There needs to be competition in the energy fields in Japan. MORE TRASH TO STREAM PLANT CONVERTED INCINERATORS .
0
globalwatcher
Rate hike will be a killer for Japanese economy. Do not go for it. It will be a bad idea
0
Utrack
I went surfing the web for waste power plants in Japan and found the most Beautiful waste power plant in Osaka.
http://www.newcolonist.com/osaka_waste.html
Excerpt: The incinerator heat is used to create enough electricity to run the entire plant's operation, with the leftover sold back to the city (32,000kw).
0
as_the_crow_flies
Who's spreading harmful rumours now! I hope the internet truth corps they've hired to counteract harmful rumours will take down any reference to price increases across the net.
0
Scrote
The paper the other day mentioned a possible 15% price hike for TEPCO. I thought it interesting that 15% was also the amount the government asked companies to save during the summer. They will probably say "look, you can reduce your consumption by 15%, we will increase the price by 15%, your bill will remain the same but TEPCO can increase it's profits to pay higher salaries to its directors".
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