MINSK, 20 October (BelTA) – Cross-subsidies in housing and utilities will be phased out as people's incomes grow, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at the nationwide seminar on the improvement and development of the Belarusian housing and utility sector, BelTA has learned.
“We will be working towards elimination of cross-subsidization by 2020. This is what Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko and the industrial sector of the country insist upon. We do not mind this. But wages of people must be substantially higher before we ensure the full cost recovery for all utilities,” the president said. “There should be no one-side games,” he added.
The head of state stressed that cross-subsidies can be gradually abandoned through the enhancement of efficiency, further cost saving, improvement of standards, differentiation of tariffs, modernization of the housing and utility sector. “These are the solutions to the problem. We have a state program which we must implement,” the president noted.
