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Medvedev to hold conference on long-term tariff policy in energy sectors

MOSCOW, February 12, 3:46 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will hold a conference Wednesday to consider the basic approaches to building patterns for long-term tariff regulation in the electric power and gas sectors, the government press service reported.

The conference, which is held within the scope of preparing a specified forecast for long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for a period until 2030, will involve First Vice-Premier Igor Shuvalov, Vice-Premier Arkady Dvorkovich, Assistant to the President Andrei Belousov, Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, Sergei Novikov, Director of the Federal Service for Tariffs, and Alexei MiIler, Chairman of the Board of the OAO (public joint-stock company) Gazprom.

Earlier the government had frozen the tariffs of the natural monopolies, limiting them to inflation rate. Early in January the discussion on tariffs-setting resumed. According to the Finance Ministry's proposals, it is suggested that tariffs be limited b inflation over a period of at least five years, whereas the Economic Development Ministry (EDM) suggests a more flexible pattern of countercyclical setting of tariffs, within the framework of which tariffs rise quicker in the event of a high rate of growth and slower under conditions of stagnation.

According to EDM's long-term forecast, the EDM expects that Russia's GDP in the 2013-20130 period will grow by 2.5%, on average. In accordance with the conservative variant of the renewed forecast, the average yearly rate of growth of invesments within the 2013-20130 period will be 4.3 percent. Industrial production in the period unde review is to grow, on average, by 2.1%. The rate of increase in export is to be 1.2% and that of import by 2.8 percent. Real wages will grow by 3.6%, with unemployment rate being 5.5%.

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