National Development and Reform Commission: Standardize railway freight charges and reduce local railways

In order to implement the decisions and arrangements made at the executive meeting of the State Council, promote the adjustment of the transport structure and effectively reduce the logistics costs of the real economy, the National Development and Reform Commission and the General Administration of Market Supervision jointly issued a notice recently, making arrangements for further sorting out and standardizing the relevant charges for railway freight transport.

The notice stipulates that the relevant railway freight charges should be cleared and standardized from five aspects:

First, we will thoroughly clean up and standardize local government charges, further clean up local government charges outside the national government fund directory list and the central and local administrative and institutional fee directory list, as well as illegal and disguised charges such as railway transport enterprises converting cancelled government charges into operational service charges;

Second, continue to clean up and simplify railway freight miscellaneous charges. The railway head office should cancel and merge some miscellaneous charges according to the actual situation, improve the billing method for the retained items, and reasonably determine the charging standard;

Third, strengthen the management of service charge for special line maintenance, and guide railway transport enterprises to reasonably determine the charging items and charging standards for transportation facilities and equipment maintenance service;

The fourth is to reasonably reduce the level of local railway freight rates, implement the freight prices and charges set by the government or guided by the government, and scientifically determine the level of freight rates and charging standards. If it is obviously high, it should be reduced on the basis of cost supervision and review or cost investigation;

Fifthly, regulate operators' charging behavior, implement the regulation of clearly marked prices, adhere to the principle of voluntary selection of users, and investigate and correct illegal pricing behaviors according to law.

The notice requires that local price authorities and market supervision departments should fully understand the significance of clearing and standardizing railway freight charges for optimizing the transport structure and reducing logistics costs, comprehensively check the situation and problems related to railway freight charges in the region, increase the power of clearing and standardizing, track and inspect the implementation, and ensure that the work of clearing and standardizing is effective.