PARIS, Jan 6 (Reuters) – France’s power suppliers have agreed to offer a guaranteed power tariff of 280 euros on average per megawatt hour to small businesses, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.
“This is a guaranteed tariff and it is a enormous relief”, said Le Maire after a meeting with energy executives.
A large part of France’s small businesses, which according to the official definition include all firms with fewer than 10 employees, are already protected by a 15% price increase cap for household gas and power tariffs.
But some of them last year needed to sign new contracts on the open market when prices jumped and due to sufficient cash reserves are now struggling to pay their bills.
Reporting by Tassilo Hummel;
Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta
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