The sum of 500 million euros recently announced by Aleksandar Vucic, the president of Serbia, as additional funds that the state will allocate for investing in energy in the next five years is not enough for planned investments, since public companies in the energy sector have no money for investments, according to expert public in Serbia.
Although, for example, Energy Minister Aleksandar Antic has announced that within the next five to seven years, Serbia’s Power Industry will invest one billion euros in environmental protection, the expert public is very skeptical that not only all other public companies in the energy sector can com up to that amount without borrowing from commercial banks or international financial institutions.
Slobodan Ruzic, director of the consulting firm Energy Saving Group, tells Danas that it is very difficult to talk about the amount of energy investment in the next five years unless one knows exactly what is planned to be built in Serbia in the sector.
– If we look at the amount that the state is ready to allocate, it can be concluded that it is sufficient to cover about 20 to 30 percent of individual energy projects. Public companies like Electric Power Industry of Serbia and Electric Power Network of Serbia do not have enough funds of their own to invest while Srbijagas is indebted and cannot partner with the state in implementing energy projects – says a source to Danas.
He added that the only way for the implementation of energy projects in Serbia is for the state to find reliable foreign partners or to use loans from commercial banks.
– Without this, it will not be possible because public companies do not have the necessary funds and the state is ready to allocate only 500 million euros, which is not enough for the implementation of energy projects – said Ruzic.
Vojislav Vuletic, secretary general of the Serbian Gas Association, told Danas that the president of Serbia has repeatedly made a number of statements that have not materialized in the end.
– Given such experiences, the big question is whether he should believe his statement that Serbia will invest 500 million euros in the next five years. Also, this is not enough to invest in the energy sector. For example, investing in the construction of a gas power plant that would replace the production from coal-fired thermal units will cost around 400 million euros, while building a new unit at Kolubara B will cost at least one billion euros. Accordingly, it is clear that 500 million euros is a completely insignificant sum without additional funds being invested – Vuletic said.
We tried to check the information on whether the public companies in the field of energy possess the necessary funds for investments announced by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, in EPS and Srbijagas, but to this day we have not received answers to our questions. As a reminder, President Vucic, presenting the Serbia 2025 investment program, announced that the state would invest 500 million euros in energy investments.
– When you look only at that figure, it seems small, but not when you know how much money is available to public companies – said Vucic. According to him, the additional money will be used primarily for additional gas storage capacities, for the construction of the new block of the Kolubara B thermal power plant, as well as numerous other priority projects in the construction of the gas network.
