There will be no hike in electricity prices until Tet (Lunar New Year) late next month, Dinh Quang Tri, deputy general director of EVN, has assured.
Speaking in an online interview with readers of online newspaper VNExpress on Thursday, he said regulations require at least a three-month gap between hikes.
Tariffs were increased just recently - on December 20 the Government hiked them by 5 per cent to VND1,304 (US$0.06) plus VAT for a kilowatt-hour.
But he refused to speculate on whether the tariffs would increase again after three months, saying it depended on inputs like fuel prices, exchange rates, electricity generation structures, and the socio-economic situation at the time.
Nguyen Tien Thoa, head of the Ministry of Finance's Price Management Department, admitted the December 20 tariff hike would impact companies and households.
But the VND62 increase would not have too large an impact, he claimed.
The 5.7 per cent hike for the manufacturing sector would increase costs by 0.39-0.56 per cent for an industry like cement which used large amounts of electricity, he said.
The cost of supplying water would rise by 2-2.3 per cent, he said.
Only households using more than 100kWh a month have been affected since the hike is calculated from the 101st kWh.
Households using 200kWh a month would only pay an additional VND7,400, Thoa said.
