Reported yesterday morning that its power generation grew 11% last year (to 50,842 GWh). This strong growth corresponds to interim figures released in the course of last year (for the first nine months of 2000, the y-to-y increase was +17%) and should not come as a surprise. CEZ suffered a market share loss on the domestic market last year but made up for it by more than doubling exports. For 2001, says the report released yesterday, CEZ expects the same or weaker exports, but hopes to recover its domestic market share.
Separately, the head of the new independent Czech power-sector regulator says in a newspaper interview today that she does not expect Czech post-liberalization electricity prices to fall as much as they did in Western Europe.
(Ondrej Datka)