Friday, 29 July 2016
Low-Income Families to Get Additional Support
A regular Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.
According to data available from the Public Services Regulatory Commission, the average monthly rate of electricity consumed by households is about 202 kilowatt/hours. August 1, 2016 is the deadline set for the Government and Tashir company-funded subsidy, after which the population will have to pay 4.32 drams more for each kilowatt/hour; which means extra 1000 drams to be paid for 202 kW of electricity. To support low-income families, the Government has raised the amount of welfare benefits by 1000 drams for 112, 300 vulnerable households. Thus, the average monthly benefit will be up 1,000 drams to AMD31, 350.
Commenting on the proposed draft government decree, the Prime Minister stated in part, “You may remember that on August 1, 2015, the cost of electricity was raised by 6.93 drams, as a result of which the Government and President of Tashir company Samvel Karapetyan discussed the issue and decided that they should cover the gap of the cost of up to 250 kW electricity consumed by households. Whereas the cost of energy will be down 2.58 drams from 6.93 to 4.35 from this August 1, the population will only have to pay 4.35 drams above the currently applicable tariff.
After discussing the issue with President Serzh Sargsyan, we decided that the Government should shoulder the extra cost of electricity for 112, 300 vulnerable families from August 1, 2016. That is, during the remaining five months of this year, we will pay AMD 561 million to settle the above gap. Accordingly, we have envisaged AMD1, 150 million in our medium-term expenditures program.”
To create a legal framework conducive to energy market liberalization and cross-border trade development, as well as to streamline the functions delegated to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources Ministry, other government agencies and the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC), the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources was commissioned to cooperate with the PSRC with a view to developing by May 31, 2017 an action plan-timetable and relevant legislative amendments for energy market liberalization and cross-border trade development.
The Government decided to grant Rusal-Armenal CJSC a 3-year VAT payment extension for imported goods. The Company intends to expand the range of its products by investing some 2.4 billion drams, of which 816 million for the purchase of furnaces.
The meeting approved the proposal to sign an agreement on the accessibility of Eurasian Economic Union-member States’ stock exchanges (trade operators) for other member States’ brokers and dealers. The meeting next approved the signing of the draft Protocol on amendments to the agreement on mutual trips of citizens between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Government endorsed the proposals to join the agreement on registration and transportation of ozone-depleting substances with the Kyrgyz Republic in the exercise of mutual trade operations, on setting terms and conditions for mutual trips of citizens between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Uzbekistan and on cooperation with the Republic of Tajikistan in the fields of public healthcare and medical science.
