(Yicai Global) Nov. 13 -- China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will extend a two-month long crackdown on cryptocurrency mining companies to root out those masquerading as Big Data businesses, which are entitled to enjoy lower energy bills among other perks.

By dodging supervision and posing as part of the Big Data sector such companies take advantage of a number of preferential policies in regard to electricity charges, land rates and taxation, the regional department of industry and information technology said on its website on Nov. 11.

This digital currency mining sector is a fake financial innovation that is not associated with the real economy and should not be supported, the department said in a statement in September. The local government has decided to identify firms of this type and organize their orderly departure from the region.

The results of the previous campaign were not revealed but the government said that it needed to formulate uniform and standardized criteria to guide the inspection teams' search for such mining companies across the region.

The high energy consumption posed by the mining of bitcoins and other encrypted currencies is one of the main reasons why certain parts of China, including Inner Mongolia, are not in favor of it.