The authorities will record the tariffs of housing and communal services to take money from citizens for the impoverished Gazprom

The Russian authorities predicted the growth of housing and communal services tariffs in 2024 by almost 10%, which will become a record unified rate of tariffs over the past ten years. The government needs to get into the pockets of citizens to find money for Gazprom, which lost about half of the exports after the outbreak of war.

Details . The Ministry of Economic Development published a socio-economic forecast for the next three years. The document states that, according to the ministry, the total payment of citizens for utilities in 2024 will grow by 9.8%. The increase will occur on July 1. The Ministry of Education explained the need for such an increase in that it is necessary to index gas prices and electricity tariffs over the plan (about half of which is produced using gas) by 4% and 2.9%, respectively.

• Such a sharp one -time increase in housing and communal services in Russia has not been since 2014. Moreover, if you compare the change in the tariff for the year by the year over the past 10 years, it turns out that next year the price will grow weaker than in 2022. Then tariffs increased by 13%. But that year they were promoted twice: from July 1 (in this date, tariffs were indexed the previous ten years) - by 4%, and then unscheduled from December 1 - another 9%. Vladimir Putin then promised that indexation would not be a year and a half to support the “level of welfare and income level” of citizens. That is, de facto indexation of 2022 was stretched for two years. This time the authorities do not promise anything like this.

• It follows from the new forecast that the main driver of raising housing and communal services tariffs in 2024 is an increase in wholesale prices for gas for the population by 11.2%. Electricity tariffs for citizens (and its significant volumes generate gas power plants) will also increase - by 8.9%.

• Thus, Gazprom will be one of the main beneficiaries of the jump in prices for Kommunalka. The intention of the authorities to help him earn understandable: in 2023, according to the settlement of the State Bank of the VEB, the export of Gazprom gas to Europe will collapse six times compared to the pre -war 2021, up to 21 billion cubic meters. It was on the EU market that the gas monopolist previously earned the main profit.

• In general, the export of Gazprom, according to VEB, in 2023, will fall almost by half by the last pre -war year, up to 100 billion cubic meters after 185 billion cubic meters in 2021. Because of this, the free cash flow of a gas concern in the first half of the year passed into a negative zone, exceeding -0.5 trillion rubles. This amount shows how much more Gazprom spent on investments than earned from sales. To patch a “hole”, the company actively occupies, its net debt in the first half of the year increased by a third compared with the first half of 2022, to 5.3 trillion rubles.

• “The need for state support for the“ national treasure ”can become relevant in 2025/26,” write (https://t.me/russianmacro/17798) analysts of the MMI channel. It seems that the state is already preparing for this, raising the tariffs of housing and communal services.

Context . Housing and communal services tariffs can even more firmly disperse inflation, which continues to be at a high level. The growth rate of prices in September had already doubled: from September 19 to September 25, the index of weekly inflation increased by 0.28% (as much as all over August ) after 0.13% per week in the previous 14 days.

• At the end of August, Vladimir Putin said that for the government and the Central Bank, the task of curbing inflation "is now coming to the fore."