Armenia’s French-managed water distribution network said on Thursday it will ask state utility regulators soon to allow another increase in the price of drinking water in the country.
The Public Service Regulatory Commission (PSRC) already sanctioned a nearly 6 percent rise in the tariff which took effect on January 1. It was set at 180 drams (37 U.S. cents) per cubic meter for the vast majority of Armenian households. The tariff will be valid until the end of this year.
A spokesman for the Veolia Jur network, Murad Sargsian, declined to specify the scale of another price rise sought by the operator. Nor did he give any explanations for the measure.
Armenia’s drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities are run by France’s Veolia utility group in accordance with a 15-year management contract which it signed with the Armenian government last November.
Veolia managed the water and sewerage network of Yerevan in the past 10 years. It significantly improved water supply in the Armenian capital in that period not least because of capital investments made in the aging network.
In a November 2016 statement, Veolia said that it will attract $200 million in funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the German development bank KfW over the next four years for similar infrastructure upgrades across the country. “By 2030 the entire population of Armenia will thus be supplied with drinking water [around the clock] thanks to Veolia,” said the statement.
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