Coal-rich Shanxi province has vowed to clean up all unreasonable taxes and fees levied on coal sales, according to a guidance document recently issued by the provincial government for the purpose of easing miners’ cost burdens.

Coal enterprises would continue to be exempted from the environment recovery fund (10 yuan/t) and mine transformation fund (5 yuan/t), and only need to pay half of the serve fee for coal transactions at the China Taiyuan Transaction Center, which previously collects 0.1% of service fee from both the seller and the buyer, said the document.

Shanxi would also regulate coal sales through road, prohibit forced centralized sales and ban levying of fees unapproved by the central and provincial governments.

Since May 23, 2013, coal to be transported by road has been required to trade at the platform of the China Taiyuan Coal Transaction Center. However, the original management system for road coal transportation remains exist and Shanxi Coal Transport & Sales Group Co., Ltd. (SCTSG) continues to control all the coal sales by road.

Miners to sell and users to buy coal have to sign sales and supply contract with the county-level and prefecture-level branches of the SCTSG separately and pay various fees and charges, otherwise the coal trucked will be stopped and penalized by check stations set up by the SCTSG.

But the fact is that SCTSG’s local branches even cooperate with individuals in serving their own interests by levying unreasonable or additional fees, which are far above the standards formulated by government authorities.

Despite intensified supervision over road transportation launched by the central government, the disordered situation in road coal transportation in Shanxi is still rampant, exposed the state media recently.

In the first four months of the year, Shanxi transported 40.4 million tonnes of coal to the outside by road, making up 19.7% of the total outbound transport and 13.6% of the total output, showed data from the Department of Shanxi Coal Industry.