MARKOVIC: Electricity price must go up by 60 percent until late 2014

(Dragomir Marković)

Dragomir Markovic, CEO of the Electric Power Company of Serbia (EPS), stated that the company had no plans to increase the price of electricity in 2012, but that it must go up by 60 percent until the end of 2014.

Markovic said in an interview with Beta news agency that the electricity price could be increased either at once or gradually, pointing out that the electricity market in Serbia would be completely open as of 2015 and that it would be determining that price by itself.

- EPS is completely ready for the market opening, and we have wanted that to happen for years. The worst method of managing the price and the price policy is to do that in an administrative way. That should be done by the market - said Markovic.

He stressed that the low price of electricity in Serbia, which is the lowest in Europe, encourages irrational consumption and disables EPS' investments.

- With the average price of 5 eurocents for 1 kWh, Serbia ranks last in energy efficiency in Europe - Markovic explained.