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Duma Wants Price Control Guidelines
The Russian State Duma Committee on Economic Policy yesterday recommended that the government develop legislation to form “a comprehensive system of state influence on pricing” that would encompass both state corporations and the market sector and come into fore next year. Deputy chairman of the Economic Policy Committee Elena Panina said that the proposal “does not concern the growth of administrative price regulation, but rather improvements to market mechanisms of state influence on prices and tariffs to stimulate the development of the economy and solve social issues.”
According to Panina, the state uses the regulatory instruments at its disposal badly. Those instruments consist of 15 laws and “hundreds of acts,” committee chairman Evgeny Fedorov added. The government is being asked to draft a single law on pricing policy that would define the authority of the federal government and regional governments, set principles for free and regulated pricing, establish criteria for expenses (in the utilities sector, for example) and set limits on monopolistic activities.
The Duma is recommending that world practice be taken into account, mentioning policies in the United States, Austria and Belgium specifically. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade would not comment on the proposal, but acknowledged the need for “a unified regulatory space.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 05, 2007
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Photo: Павел Соловьев
