BEIJING, Dec. 23 -- China will cut the price of electricity generated by coal-fired plants and sold to the country's power grid to reduce the burden on enterprises and cut emissions.

The country will lower the on-grid price by an average of about 0.03 yuan per kilowatt-hour starting from Jan. 1, 2016, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The saved funds will be used to reduce the price for businesses, upgrade power plants to ones with low emissions and to increase supply of renewable energy, the statement said.

A special fund for the restructuring of companies will be established to support the resettling of laid-off workers after outdated production capacity in the coal and steel sectors is eliminated.

The government will continue to impose punitive power prices on sectors that consume a lot of energy on a tier basis, the statement said.