PUTRAJAYA, June 23 — Non-domestic industrial users of electricity will see a surcharge reduction from 20 sen per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 17 sen starting July until December this year, the Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change (NRECC) Ministry announced today.

Its senior undersecretary in charge of electricity supply Mareena Mahpudz told the media in a briefing on new tariffs that this should cause an estimated reduction of between 28 to 35 per cent in their monthly electricity bills.

"These users usually pass these costs on to their consumers,” said ministry deputy secretary-general Datuk Mohamad Razif Abd Mubin.

"Once this 20 sen to 17 sen kicks in, maybe we can gently ask them to lower their prices accordingly,” he added, referring to the surcharge reduction.

He expressed hope that this measure could reduce the squeeze of inflation on the public.

Besides that, Mareena said that the ministry has agreed to provide aid to state water and sewerage operators by reducing their imbalance cost pass-through (ICPT) surcharge from 20 sen per kWh to 3.7 sen per kWh.

"The total of government subsidies for them is RM131 million,” she added.

The electricity tariff adjustments were part of the government’s move towards targeted subsidies to ensure that the assistance was received by groups who needed it the most, she said.

In the same briefing, the ministry also announced that the top 1 per cent of electricity users in the country will pay a higher tariff between July and December this year.

It said the new ICPT mechanism will see around 83,000 users paying at least RM187 more per month.

In March, national news agency Bernama reported NRECC minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad as saying that the government had allocated RM10.76 billion to cover electricity bill subsidies for domestic consumers and non-domestic consumers in the low voltage category for the period of January 1 to June 30 of this year.

Nik Nazmi previously said the cost of ICPT for the period from July to December 2022 was RM16.16 billion, equivalent to a surcharge rate of 27 sen/kWh which should be imposed on all users for the period from January to June 2023.