China will grant a value-added tax (VAT) rebate to nuclear power companies as part of the country's efforts to promote the development of nuclear power, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation said in a joint statement.
The government will return 75 percent of VAT to nuclear firms each year for the first five years after a nuclear plant starts operations.
The annual rebate will fall to 70 percent in the following five years and to 55 percent in the five years after that, the statement said.
The rebates took effect on January 1, 2008.
China, the world's second largest energy consumer, has been promoting nuclear power as an alternative to oil- and coal-fired generating plants.
Its target is 40 million kilowatts of installed nuclear power capacity — 4 percent of total capacity — by 2020.
