Vuk Hamovic, president of the company EFT, said that Serbia’s laws are not too attractive for large foreign investments in power generation facilities. He expressed the hope that it will be changed.
“Laws in Serbia put barriers to foreign investors by asking them to pre-purchase complete land they acquire through the concession, which means that they must invest in advance several hundred million euros, which is not required from Electric Power Industry of Serbia”, said Hamović at the press conference.
Hamović pointed out that this is not in line with European standards and should therefore change the laws.
“Serbia has a relatively modest hydropower potentials, but there are a lot of serious thermal potentials, as there are resources of lignite out of Kosovo,” said Hamović.
Hamović said that EFT in the past two years in the electricity supply in 20 European countries, mostly in Germany, generated revenue of two billion euros per year, of which 150 million in Serbia.
“Compared with income profit is unfortunately small and is measured permille,” said Hamović. He added that over the past 13 years, EFT generated revenue of around EUR 10 billion, and that has not been collected only two million, which is higher revenue, better than those realized by the banks.
“We are not bigger than NIS or EPS, maybe by income, but there are other elements,” said Hamović.
EFT has achieved the largest investments in electricity production in two projects in the Republic of Srpska, thermal power plant in Stanari worth 560 million euros, and hydropower plant Ulog on the Neretva River in the amount of 65 million euros.
“There are more favorable investment conditions imposed by foreigners running Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Hamović.
Hamović said that after the deregulation of electricity supply from the beginning of next year, will increase the price of electricity for large commercial customers, as EPS will not have to sell electricity at subsidized prices, and that the public will continue to be protected.
“You will get a little smaller retailers, and when we show up, we are likely on winning the tenders,” said Hamović. Hamović estimated that the EPS after trade liberalization “will pick up 90 percent of large customers.”
Representative of the international auditing company Deloitte Darko Stanisavić said that on the list of the biggest companies in Central Europe EFT took place 63 by revenue.
Source; Serbia Energy
