Household electricity bills to go up by ten percent

Czech households can expect to pay up to 10% more for their electricity next year, said Josef Firt of the Energy Regulatory Office in an interview with Czech Television on Sunday. He attributed this to the increased cost of electricity distribution, as well as the rise in cost of base load power. In the interview with Czech Television’s Vaclav Moravec, Mr Firt said that gas prices would also rise in 2008. But, he said this price-increase would be below the rate of inflation, which the Czech National Bank has predicted will be between 4.4% and 5.8% next year.