Reductions in roaming charges in Eurasian Economic Union agreed

Mobile carriers in all five countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) confirmed they will reduce roaming tariffs soon, Nurlan Aldabergenov, Member of the Board (Minister) for Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), told a press conference after a videoconference to discuss the anti-monopoly regulation and roaming tariffs.

The videoconference was attended by representatives of the major mobile companies of all countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. It was agreed that mobile operators will reduce roaming charges seven times. The prices for all services: voice, SMS, mobile Internet will decrease in varying degrees as well.

The Minister noted that for the past two years the Eurasian Economic Commission has been working to reduce roaming charges. "Today we can make our citizens happy with the first result of our work," he said. Nurlan Aldabergenov stressed that the decision to lower the tariffs was taken by cellular operators themselves. The EEC does not intend to regulate these tariffs. However, if mobile operators depart from the agreements the EEC can launch antitrust investigations and introduce a procedure of tariff regulation.

The largest Russian mobile operators who participated in the press conference announced about the decision to reduce roaming tariffs. VimpelCom has already reduced six times the basic price per minute in roaming for subscribers of prepaid system in the EEU countries. Now the price is 8 Russian rubles per minute while in Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan instead of 49 Russian rubles per minute. MTS has reduced three times the price for Internet traffic while in Armenia, for voice communication - from 65 to 60 Russian rubles. In the near future, the company intends to reduce roaming tariffs with the other countries of the EEU. MegaFon intends to act similarly. It has already reduced the tariffs for voice services in roaming while in Kazakhstan from 33 to 7 Russian rubles.