Local telephone tariffs are to be raised for 34 Svyazinvest subsidiaries across Russia as of September 1, 2002.  

The decision to index household and budget-funded tariffs on an average of 18 percent was adopted by the Anti-Monopoly Ministry of the Russian Federation during July and August 2002.  

Stanislav Avdiyants, executive director and director of the director of the department of economics and tariff policy of Svyazinvest had the following to say about the tariff hike: "This measure can be considered to be an interim step.  The management of Svyazinvest was lobbying the Anti-Monopoly Ministry for a 30-percent indexation of household tariffs.  Nonetheless, we regard this action as positive and are confident that the Anti-Monopoly Ministry will review our proposal at the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003.  

For the record: 

In 2002 14 independent OJSC Svyazinvest subsidiaries were authorized to implement tariff hikes.  The issue of tariff revision for other regional operators is to be considered by the Anti-Monopoly Ministry of the Russian Federation during September 2002.