YEREVAN/JUNE 19 (The Bulletin) — Consumers in Armenia will not pay any more for their gas despite a push by Russia’s Gazprom, the gas supplier, to increase prices after the Armenian Public Services Regulatory Commission ordered a price freeze.
The ruling is a victory for Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan who has styled himself as the champion of the people since he was propelled to power in a revolution in 2018.
In 2015, street protests against rises to electricity tariffs forced the government into an embarrassing u-turn and Mr Pashinyan was desperate not to stoke frustration now, especially with anger at the government’s handling of the coronavirus growing and the prospect of the economy tipping into a recession.
Quoting the Public Services Regulatory Commission, media in Armenia said that consumers would continue to pay a subsidised 139 Armenian drams per cubic metre of gas and vulnerable groups will pay 100 drams per cubic metre if their consumption does not exceed 600 cubic metres per year.
Instead, businesses that consume more than 10,000 cubic metres of gas per year and greenhouses will pay more for their gas, meeting some of the price rises that the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom had been asking for.
Earlier this month, Mr Pashinyan had proposed that the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union unify gas tariffs across the region.
This was rejected by the Kremlin, though, which said it needed more price flexibility to react to global market moves.
ENDS
— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on June 23 2020
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020