Vattenfall announces new investments in GZE and EW

The new president of energy distributor Vattenfall Polen, Tuomo Hatakka, has announced that the Swedish concern is satisfied with the investments it has completed in Poland so far. He added, however, that the profitability of two of Vattenfall's plants - Elektrocieplownie Warszawskie (EW) and Gornoslaski Zaklad Elektroenergetyczny (GZE) - is still awaited. "As far as heating and power plants are concerned, EC Krakow is a benchmark for us. In 2001 it achieved an operational margin of 16% while EW managed only 4%. This year, although an excise on electrical energy was introduced (due to which we lost around zl. 40 million), we managed to double last year's results in Warsaw," said Hatakka adding that this is still not a satisfactory level. Vattenfall intends to continue a restructuring process in the two companies. "One of the key elements in restructuring is the control of costs. We have managed to achieve quite good results as far as the control of outsourced services is concerned," said Hatakka. At the same time he declared that over the next three years GZE and EW will invest around zl. 750 million on the development of IT systems and creation of a new billing system. (Puls Biznesu, p. 6) A.Z.