Chinese enterprises have been fined a total of 93.3969 million RMB for suspicion of price fixing in the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) industry by Sept. 10, National Business Daily reported.

The enterprises that were penalized include Tianyuan Group, Ningxia Yinglite Chemicals Co., Ltd, Inner Mongolia Junzheng Energy & Chemical Group Co., Ltd, Erdos Group, and Elion Resources Group.

The enterprises were suspected of monopoly for attending occasional joint meetings and privately discussing product prices and reaching agreements on pricing in WeChat groups, according to China’s National Development and Reform Commission, saying that it is illegal for an operator to discuss commodity prices with competitors for the purpose of uniformly raising prices.

“Fluctuations in prices and productions of one leading enterprise in the PVC industry will influence the whole industry, let alone the collective power of all the enterprises,” an insider noted.

In addition, the enterprises occasionally attended joint meetings, which were established several years ago by chlor-alkali enterprises in northwest China to cope with the sluggish market.