In Kazakhstan since October 1 rates of natural monopolies have been increased

/REUTERS, Raushan Nurshayeva, October 7, 02/ - In Kazakhstan since October 1 of 2002 there took place increase of rates for 18 types of services of natural monopolists, said the Chairman of the Agency on natural monopolies regulation and competition defense Yerbolat Dosayev, having assumed that growth of prices for public utilities will not go out of the frameworks, which were planned by the Government. In Kazakhstan antimonopoly agency confirms rates of natural monopolies every quarter. On Monday at the press-conference Dosayev said that since October 1 of the year 2002 the state railway company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy increased by 2% the rate for export-import transportations for all kinds of cargo excluding coal export. At this, the company asked antimonopoly department to increase rate by 17%. Dosayev also added that since October 1 of 2002 the 25%-discount for a number of large coal companies for coal transportation by railway has been canceled. Besides, since October 1 rates for heat supply of Almatyteplokommunenergo increased by 3.8% and gas supply by 3.9% have been increased in a number of regions including Almaty. In five regions of Kazakhstan rates for public utilities remained the same. Dosayev said that by the results of the year prices growth for heat- gas- and energy supply will remain in the framework of inflation, which had been planned by the Government for 2002. "Today I can say that the rate for heating has increased approximately by 3.8% in the country, for electrical power a bit more, about 15% odd". - said Dosayev. "We think that we still manage in the parameters, which have been set for this year - 5.8% of inflation. The only thing that we don't know is what rate requests will come to us since January 1 of 2003 ", - he added. According to Dosayev's words, monopolists strive for increasing of their rates not so actively as earlier: Since April 1 of 2002 84 rates were increased, since July 1 there were increased 47 kinds of services. "One can mark the tendency of gradual decrease of the number of requests for (monopolists' ones) and, what is more important, significant decrease of number of rates, which have been confirmed for increasing, in comparison with the ones, which are in effect", - said Dosayev. [2002-10-07]