(Yicai Global) Dec. 18 -- Street lights and shop signs are being turned off at night in the Chinese city of Yiwu in line with the country’s energy conservation push, the local government said in a video posted yesterday by news aggregator Yidian Zixun. 

The lamps on main roads and in residential areas as well as outdoor advertising billboards are being switched off and the operating hours of some firms are being limited, the city government said, with the measures set to last until the end of the year. 

Companies, hospitals and schools in the city must comply with the electricity usage restrictions from Dec. 12 to 31, with those categorized from A to C barred from using any heating equipment and required to reduce power use by 10 percent to 50 percent, while businesses in category D will have their electricity cut off. The notice also prohibits the use of air conditioning, elevators and heating in government agencies and state-owned enterprises. 

Yiwu, in Zhejiang province, is home to the world's largest wholesale market for small articles, Yiwu International Trade City, where 65 percent of the goods are for export. The province’s exporters are trying to ramp up production to deal with surging in orders in the run-up to Christmas. At this time of the year, Yiwu supplies the world with Christmas lights and other festive decorations.

Xu Jun, owner of a local factory that makes small items, said he had received a notice requiring his plant to operate every other day. All machines must be turned off when the factory is closed and only lights can remain on, he said. 

Beijing, Changsha and other Chinese cities have seen a surge in demand for power this month, and there have been power shortages in provinces including Zhejiang, Hunan and Jiangxi. These conditions are mostly due to an increase in industrial activity at the same time as the onset of cold weather, the National Development and Reform Commission said yesterday. 

Yiwu’s restrictions mean that some producers will face the risk of delayed contract fulfillment at year-end, which is a peak period, said Zhou Wei, who runs a clothing factory in Yiwu. Zhou said he had been told to shut production lines until the end of this month due to the impact on logistics efficiency from the pandemic. 

Not all local firms are under so much pressure. The factory “did receive a notice about reducing electricity use, but it didn't force us to do so," a person in charge of a local plant making products for a leading player in China's new-energy sector told the 21st Century Business Herald. "We are still running at full capacity."

China's electricity consumption totaled 646.7 billion kilowatt-hours last month, up 9.4 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said this week.

Editor: Tom Litting