NAZARYAN’S OPINION ON GAS PRICE INCREASE

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[01:54 pm] 02 November, 2006

Robert Nazaryan, head of the Committee Regulating Public Services,
didn’t want to comment on the announcement of Karen Karapetyan
(executive director of "ArmRusGasArd") on the increase of gas price.

Reminder: Karen Karapetyan announced that he was going to issue an
application to increase gas price of the industrial consumers.

Asked the question whether it is not an abuse of monopoly and violation
of preliminary arrangement, as it was formerly announced that the
gas price would not go up in Armenia for at least three years,
Robert Nazaryan answered, "I don’t want to comment on Karapetyan’s
announcement right now as the information I get on this score is from
the press and TV. But being a licensed company they have the right
to issue an application to the Committee Regulating Public Services
to review the gas tariffs every six months.

As for the arrangement, I assume it refers to the gas price brought
on the borderline and not to the tariffs of the company’s services."

Does it give us a ground to assume that the gas price of
resident-consumers will go up in the same way?

Robert Nazaryan advised us to get the answer to this question by
Karen Karapetyan himself.

The head of the committee claims that unless they get the application,
analyze it and get acquainted with the prices, they won’t be able to
answer the journalists’ questions.