The price of electricity in Serbia should increase by 60 percent until 2013 since that is a precondition for the market opening, said Dragomir Markovic, the director general of Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS), the largest energy company in Serbia.

He said for the Monday edition of the Belgrade-based daily Blic that the average price of one kilowatt-hour of electricity in the region is 60 percent higher than in Serbia, adding that unless we introduce an economic price of electric power, this may turn into a major obstacle on the country's EU path.

Markovic said that it is wrong to preserve social peace by means of a low electricity price, and recalled that at the moment only 35,000 Serbian households are on social welfare and pay lowered electricity bills although the number of poor people is much greater.

"Provided the economic price of electricity is introduced, the number of people who pay lowered electricity bills could increase by ten percents," the EPS director general said, adding that the figure could reach 350,000 households or one million people.

According to him, EPS expects investments of about nine billion euros, which will come from the EPS funds, loans and strategic partners.