Cloudy skies ahead for coal industry

New policy may benefit domestic firms, but issues like oversupply, dwindling demand persist, reports Du Juan.

China's decision to reimpose tariffs on imported coal from Wednesday will help domestic coal producers in the short term and pose hardships for Chinese traders and foreign companies in the long run, experts said.

An immediate fallout of the decision by the world's biggest coal producer and consumer would be a sharp reduction in coal imports from Australia, the United States and Russia, they said.