Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic said that no increase of the price of electricity is planned at the moment and the probability that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) requests thereof will be fulfilled are diminishing.
During his visit to thermal power plant Nikola Tesla B, Minister Antic pointed out that all priorities regarding state-owned power utility EPS have been oriented in a completely different direction than increasing the electricity prices in Serbia. EPS has a plan of fiscal consolidation and certain benchmarks and criteria that have to be met each year, while in 2017 the focus is on financial savings in EPS in order to make the company more stable and sustainable in the long-term.
Last week, Acting Director General of EPS Milorad Grcic said that in the first ten months of this year, the company recorded net profit of almost 134 million euros, which is, according to him, 126 million euros above the planned net profit for this period.
Grcic said at the press conference that on 1 January 2017, EPS will have some 422 million euros on its account, of which 81 million euros will be transferred to the state budge as taxes. He also said that EPS’ earnings from the sale of electricity on power exchanges in the region amounted to 76.6 million euros until the second half of December.
