(Yicai Global) June 14 -- China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has a long way to go if it hopes to follow through its on 2016 plans to build 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations by 2030.

The country had built just 25 such stations as of December 2018 and three of them had been torn down, according to public data. Some 80 percent of them are in Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei and Liaoning, and many are used for research rather than commercial operations.

Investors are being cautious, General Manager Gong Ningfeng of Hydrosis Beijing Technology, which supplies equipment for the industry, told Yicai Global, though saying hydrogen energy stocks are hot right now.

Infrastructure for the stations requires masses of capital, but returns are slow and contractors must weave through a complex web of local government approval processes, even though authorities are seemingly enthusiastic about the sector.

Contractors need to obtain nearly 30 official stamps from 10 different departments to build a hydrogen station in some regions, and the required land can cost tens of millions of yuan (millions of dollars).

China's first commercialized hydrogen station, the Nanhai Ruihui Hydrogen Refueling Station in Guangdong province, cost about CNY11 million (USD1.6 million), Li Cancheng, who runs the station, told Yicai Global. That factors in a CNY5 million government subsidy, he added, saying that it will take about six years to make that back even with additional incentives.