Azernews.Az

Tariffs for regulated services are not to increase in Kazakhstan despite the exchange rate of tenge to dollar, Chairman of Kazakhstan Agency for Regulation of Natural Monopolies, Murat Ospanov said speaking at a briefing in Astana on February 13.

"Moreover, tariffs for all types of regulated services will not be changed until May 1st of the year," he said. "Further changes will be carried out in a planned manner."

Ospanov said there are no prerequisites for the strong impact of the devaluation on regulated utilities in the long term due to the fact that they are mainly used in the provision of local goods.

The head of the agency pointed out that tariffs for such utility services as electricity, heat, gas and water supply are regulated by the state.

"Therefore, current tariffs are under constant control and may only be changed on the results of review of applications, and we will not tolerate unjustified price increase," Ospanov said.

He added that all tariffs changes on regulated utility services will be implemented in compliance with the planned inflation corridor recommended by the government, namely, within about six to eight percent.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan decided to abandon the maintenance of the exchange rate of the national currency - tenge - at the same level, to reduce the volume of exchange interventions and reduce interference in the formation of the exchange rate of tenge on Feb. 11.

"National Bank assumes that the new exchange rate will be at about 185 tenge to dollar," the statement of the National Bank says.

The official exchange rate is 155.5/$1 on February 14.