Armenian sociologist: Rise in gas price to trigger backlash, not riot

YEREVAN, February 2. /АРКА/. The expected gas price hike will prompt backlash, but this backlash won’t develop into mass protests, Aharon Adibekyan, the head of Sociometer independent center for sociologic studies, said on Monday. 

“I don’t think this will trigger a riot, but some backlash will be seen sooner or later,” he said. 

Adibekyan told ARKA News Agency that the gas price rise would drive other prices up, and this will aggravate public discontent. 

He thinks any price hike should be logical and socially just - it should take into account living standards.

In his opinion, a wrong time is chosen for that – this step will make impacts of the recession on people more painful. 

The authorities knew about the planned gas price hike and were to have been prepared for that to take care of socially unsecured strata, he said. 

Adibekyan thinks people will lessen gas consumption, and ArmRosgazprom CJSC will have its profit dwindled as a result. 

Armenia’s national gas distribution company ArmRosGazprom has asked Armenia’s Public Services Regulatory Commission to reconsider the current prices of natural gas charged from consumers.

According to the application, the company wants consumer gas price to be raised from present AMD 96,000 to AMD 136,000 per one thousand cubic meters of gas, VAT included.

The company has also proposed to change the pricing formula for consumers that use 10,000 and more cubic meters of gas a month.

Under a Russian-Armenian agreement Russia's Gazprom is set to decrease the price it charges for gas supplied to Armenia. The price of Russian gas for Armenia rose from $110 to $154 per one thousand cubic meters in 2009 April and is expected to rise to $180 from April 1, 2010. 

ArmRosgazprom is the sole gas supplier to Armenia. Russian Gazprom owns 80% in it, the rest is held by the Armenian government. ---0---