Azerbaijan, Baku, 21 February / corr Trend S.Babayeva / Following a double reduction, prices of long distance and city calls in Azerbaijan are lower than the average indicator in CIS countries, Ali Abbasov, the Azerbaijani Minister for Comunictiaon and Information Technology, stated on 21 February.
"Over the past four years we [the Communications Ministry] submitted proposals to reduce tariffs twice. As a result, the first cut was by 50% and the second by 30-35%," the minister said.
According to Abbasov, in the near future charges of long distance and city calls in the country will not be cut.
On 1 June 2007 the monthly subscription fee for telephone calls was increased from AZN 0.7 to AZN 2. In exchange, within the country fees for long distance calls were decreased from AZN 0.09 to AZN 0.07.
The prices of long-distance calls were also decreased as follows:
- CIS and Baltic countries - from AZN 0.45 to AZN 0.36;
- Iran, Turkey, Pakistan - from AZN 0.54 to AZN 0.45;
- European countries - from AZN 0.72 to AZN 0.54:
- USA and other countries - from AZN 0.9 to AZN 0.54.
With respect to mobile services the minister said that these prices are regulated by the market and can be decreased in condition of its liberalization. "The larger the market expands the more frequently will the tariffs decrease," the minister said.
