Prague 13th of September : Prague, Sep 13 : Czech government has approved the setting of a price limit for gas and electricity after an extremely high-level meeting.In the words of the Prime Minister Petr Fiala, households and businesses will be charged an amount of six Czech crowns (25 U.S.dollar cents) per Kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity, and an amount of three crowns for every kWh of gas both of which are inclusive of value-added tax.
Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura has put the cost on the state budget at around 130 billion crowns.The cost could be covered by state-owned companies’ revenues and a recently proposed windfall profit tax as well as revenues from emission allowances he announced on Monday night.
The Minister said that the new windfall profits tax that was discussed this morning by the government might be able to cover the amount of 70 billion crowns in the next year.However the implementation of the tax will have to take into consideration the same tax being that is being discussed at the European Union level, which the European Commission is expected to present next week, Xinhua news agency reported.
Inflation in the country finally eased after 13 months, resulting in a year-on-year rate of 17.2 percent in August according to figures released by the Czech Statistical Office on Monday.However, it’s still over the tolerance band of the Czech National Bank.Electricity prices increased by 34.6 percent and gas prices by 61.4 percent.
3.September 75,000 people gathered in Wenceslas Square in Prague to protest against the rising cost of energy and demanded the reduction of the effects of the crisis in energy.(1$ = 24.18 Czech crowns)
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