BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 25. The abolition of price controls on gasoline and diesel fuel in Kazakhstan is an important step towards market reforms, Rassul Abdukhalilov, CEO of the Kazakh company RV-Oil&Gas, said at the “Caspian and Central Asia - Refining, Petrochemicals, Trade and Logistics” event in Baku, Trend reports.
“In Kazakhstan, price controls on gasoline and diesel fuel were lifted in February this year. This is an important step for the country on the path to market reforms. We believe that these changes will have an impact not only on Kazakhstan, but on the entire region as a whole,” he said.
Abdukhalilov noted that market regulation in Kazakhstan began in the early 2000s, when the state regulated supply volumes and thus kept prices within reasonable limits. In addition, price caps were introduced in 2009 and periodically increased. The main reasons for regulation were to curb inflation and protect socially vulnerable groups.
He added that this model led to a number of other problems: significant price imbalances with neighboring countries, illegal fuel flows, shortages in the domestic market, disparities in margins between regions, low investment attractiveness of the industry, and delays in market reforms.
“These problems had been building up for a long time and needed to be addressed,” he said.