Azernews.Az

By Vafa İsmayilova

Azerbaijan's Tariff (Price) Council has set new retail prices for gasoline and diesel, along with prices for some other goods and services, the council's press service has reported.

At a meeting held on January 4, after considering appeals from relevant departments, the council made appropriate decisions.

At the meeting, the retail price of RON-92 gasoline was set at 1 manat (59 cents) per litre, and the retail price for diesel fuel was set at 0.8 manat (47 cents) per litre. Considering the environmental damage caused by the use of diesel fuel, the price difference has been reduced in order to promote gasoline consumption, the report said. It added that earlier the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) had appealed to the council with a request to increase retail prices for natural gas, RON-92 gasoline and diesel fuel in the country, the press service reported on the council's website.

Despite the economic feasibility of the proposal to increase the price of natural gas, taking into account the social policy, the Tariff (Price) Council did not consider it expedient to increase the prices for natural gas.

SOCAR explained the proposal to increase retail prices for RON-92 gasoline and diesel fuel by bringing the quality of these products to high European standards, improving the ecological environment, continuing work on the reconstruction and modernization of the oil refining industry. By June 2022 it’s planned to fully adapt diesel fuel, and by June 2023 - RON-92 gasoline to the Euro-5 standard.

The last adjustment of prices for diesel fuel was made on December 2, 2013, and for RON-92 gasoline - on July 14, 2017.

According to the council, since RON-92 gasoline is mainly used in personal cars, it will not cause a notable growth in prices for consumer goods, and will also stimulate the use of public transport and the transition to fuel-efficient cars. As a result of the price regulation, additional revenues to the state budget are predicted, which will be directed to socially oriented activities in accordance with the social policy of a systemic and sustainable nature carried out in the country. To neutralize the impact of the rise in prices for diesel fuel on passenger transportation entities, they will be issued compensation, and the respective mechanism will be announced by the end of January, 2021. This is an important step taken to prevent changes in tariffs in public transport, which are increasingly used by citizens in their daily life and which serves the interests of the population, especially its socially vulnerable part, the report added.

Control measures will be taken to prevent abuse of the tariff regulation, unjustified price increases.

At the same time, given the impact of the growth in prices for diesel fuel on the agricultural sector, the amount of the government-allocated subsidies will also be revised.

By the resolution of the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers, prices for other oil products were liberalized (save of RON-92 gasoline, diesel fuel and bitumen).

At the meeting of the Tariff (Price) Council, tariffs in other areas were also revised. So, there was discussed the appeal of the State Service for Property Issues under the Ministry of Economy to conduct a technical inventory of real estate, include information about property in the register and consider tariffs for related services.

Given that the tariffs for these services were approved in 2009 and additional funds received as a result of tariff changes will be used to purchase equipment for the provision of high-quality, prompt and reliable services, further improve the social status of workers, expand the use of information technologies, the new tariffs were approved.

The new rates will apply starting from January 5, 2021.

During the meeting the council also approved prices for about 300 medicines that have passed state registration. A complete list of 12,392 medicines, trade name, pharmaceutical form, name of active ingredient, dosage, commercial packaging, quantity per package, wholesale and retail prices at the moment, taking into account the country of origin and the date of entry into force of which have already been approved, is available on the official website of the Tariff (Price) Council, in the "Medicines" section.

At the same time, given that the relevant Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers approved the fee for phytosanitary measures and state phytosanitary services, the council’s resolution No. 4 dated August 1, 2014 was canceled.

All decisions adopted by the council can be found in the "Council Resolutions" section on the above official website. To recap, 1 USD was equivalent to 1.7 AZN on January 4.