No Electricity Price Hike Foreseen

TIRANA, Feb 2 – The Minister of Energy, Tradeand Economy, Genc Ruli said that the forecast for the price of energy was not expected to increase, even thoughthe corporation of power distributionwill conduct a handover that has yet to occur.
Speaking at a news conference last weekend, Ruli said that, “Neither ERE, nor the government are planning a scheme to further raise electricity prices.”
KESH and OSSH have been assigned much more ambitious targets than in previous years, such as a decrease in losses and an increase in collections.
The minister said the authorities were paying great attention to maximum supply of supply for the tourist season in summer and the remaining period of the year.
The minister also said that the Drini River Cascade Water Reserve was used carefully, taking into account there have been very low levels of inflow in the last two months.
The country’s power consumtion during last year saw an increase to 6.6 billion kWh compared to 5.7 billion kWh in 2007.
The minister also insisted that the main focus at the moment was the privatization of OSSH, which has already entered the final phase of negotiations with the Czech company CEZ.