THE government is extending tax waivers for importing key drilling and production equipment for both onshore and offshore oil and gas development, the Ministry of Finance said Friday.

    The ministry said Chinese manufacturers are unable to make the equipment, such as semisubmersible drilling platforms used for waters deeper than 1,000 feet and robots in waters deeper than 500 meters.

    The waivers for both import tariffs and value-added tax apply for the period between Jan. 1, 2016, and the end of 2020, the ministry said on its official website.

    The government has been rolling out a string of policy documents for the 13th five-year plan (2016-2020) in recent weeks, meaning some of these polices are backdated to the start of 2016.

    The ministry also announced in an earlier statement a tax waiver for drilling equipment used in 20 onshore oil and gas fields in western China in order to boost oil production.

    The tax waiver applies to oil blocks and natural gas reserves in four regions including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Qinghai Province, the ministry said.

    For jointly developed onshore oilfields, China also removed the value-added tax for over 100 types of equipment, it said.

    (SD-Agencies)