Domestic consumers to receive compensations related to increase in price of Russian natural gas

In order to minimize the impact of the increase in price of the tariffs for natural gas for domestic consumers, the Government will undertake the necessary measures for partial, nominal compensation of the supplementary expenses generated by the increase in price. According to the Press Service of the Government, quoted by Info-Prim Neo, in order to diminish the negative impact of the increase in price of the natural gas for domestic consumers, for the first 30 cubic meters only 25% increase will be instituted. Supplementary, nominative compensations for 11 vulnerable categories of domestic consumers will be further given according to the legislation in force – 50% and 25% of the settled tariff. According to the settled price, the National Agency for Energetic Regulation will estimate the delivery tariffs of natural gas for all country’s categories of consumers. According to the estimations, all the tariffs will increase proportionally to the increase in price of the imported natural gas. According to the contract concluded at the end of the last week with the Russian concern “Gazprom”, starting July 1, 2006, Moldova will import natural gases at the price of 160 USD/ 1000 cubic meters, comparing to 110 USD in the first semester. According to the Government, in the process of negotiating the new contract, the state managed to keep its patrimony, no goods were sold and the diminishing of state’s share in the assets of the Moldovan energetic system was not accepted.