Tbilisi Energy states that natural gas price will be increased from 0.86 GEL to 1.10 GEL for commercial consumers (except bakeries) from January 3, 2021.

According to Sandro Ratishvili, Chairman of the Taxpayers' Union, if this decision enters into force, "locks must be hung on the doors of manufacturers”.

"This is a catastrophe, it is an unexpected thing and it means closing the production. It is an incredible thing, absolutely impossible, especially amid pandemic. Tariff increase on this scale means hanging a big lock on all production,” said Ratishvili.

Ratishvili notes, that tariff increase by 24 tetri cannot be fulfilled.

“Tbilisi Energy must explain how they set up this tariff, which provides increase by 24 tetri. Their statement reads that the tariff growth is caused by the fact that no one has renovated the infrastructure for 60 years, so what have they been doing for these years? What are we paying the tax for so far? Until now we had a catastrophic tariff, 0.86 tetri and we paid so much tax that the money was to be spent on improving the infrastructure. Why have we paid such a high tariff so far? ” Ratishvili asks.

According to him, a platform should be created and it will probably be done on the basis of associations, where the issue will be discussed.