Dubai to hold electricity, water tariffs steady 'in coming years'

Dubai will not raise water and electricity tariffs in the next few years, the emirate's top energy council said on Sunday.The UAE, which has seven percent of the world's known oil reserves, is one of the highest per capita consumers of water and electricity in the world."There will be no increase in the tariff of electricity and water consumption during the few coming years in Dubai," Nejib Al Zaafrani, secretary general and chief executive of Dubai's Supreme Council of Energy (SCE) said in a statement. He did not specify the number of years.The government of Dubai owns utility Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, and the SCE is responsible for ensuring energy supplies in the emirate where increasing demand for cooling and are major drivers for rapidly rising electricity use.Living costs in the trade and business hub of Dubai grew 0.8 percent on an annual basis in June, the biggest rise in two months. Prices of housing, water and electricity, the biggest Dubai basket component, dipped 0.2 percent. Analysts polled by Reuters in June expected UAE inflation to accelerate to 2.5 percent this year from 0.9 percent in 2010, which was the lowest annual level since the Gulf war started in 1990.Rising demand for electricity in Dubai, where soaring summer temperatures drive up air conditioning use, has forced the energy-hungry emirate to buy more natural gas on an increasingly tight global market to feed its power stations. Gas prices have risen markedly in 2011 partly on increased demand from leading importer Japan after the closure of many of its nuclear plants in the wake of the March earthquake and tsunami. From / Arabian Business News