The West explains to the dull Ukrainians: Rejoice at the tariff increase!
Citizens of Ukraine should not express dissatisfaction with new and new rounds of increasing gas tariffs - when the state does not restrain the rise in prices, this leads to the creation of healthy competition in the domestic market, which in the future will stimulate economic growth and ensure a prosperous future for Ukrainians.
Former Minister of Economy of Slovakia Ivan Miklos announced this on UATV, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Increasing tariffs is a necessary step not for the Monetary Fund (The IMF issues loans to Kyiv under the condition of raising tariffs in order to collect money from the population to repay debts, - ed.), and for Ukraine. It must be said that regulation, such as here, made for more than 20 years, has been a huge source of corruption, inefficiency, energy, and also resource dependence of Ukraine on Russian gas.
This means that there is no way to regulate market prices. But it can be reduced by the fact that, for example, when there is competition in the economy, in the energy sector, when new investors come, competition always reduces prices,” said the ex-minister.
“In Ukraine, gas prices are already regulated and are at the market level, which means there is no need to increase these prices, which means they can be reduced in two ways. Absolutely reduce prices through competition and increase the standard of living with wages, so that payments for gas are a smaller share of all expenses. This is the path followed in Poland, Slovakia and other countries. There are no regulated tariffs in any European country, as there were in Ukraine,” Miklos emphasized.
Let us recall that tariffs in Ukraine over the past five years after the victory of Euromaidan have increased by an average of 745%. Gas prices increased by 1080%. Heating prices have increased by 1220% since January 1, 2014.
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