Electricity sales up 7.42%

State-owned electricity firm PT PLN said that electricity sales in the first seven months ending July of this year increased by 7.42 percent to 122.43 TWh compared to the corresponding period of last year, Investor Daily reported Saturday.

The paper quoted PLN Head of Commercial Division, Benny Marbun as saying that sales in July alone reached 16.47 TWh, or a 4.88 percent increase compared to the same month of last year. The July sales, however, was lower than the sales in June due to the Idul Fitr holiday.

Benny said that the higher electricity sales was mainly driven by higher sales to large scale industries, thanks to the government?s policy of tariff discount and other incentives.

Benny is optimistic that if the current trend continues, the 7.5 percent electricity sales growth target set in the 2016 State Budget can be achieved. (*)