ArmInfo. Attracting financial resources for the investment program of Electric Networks of Armenia is the easiest task, but it is much more difficult to organize the work correctly, Director General Karen Harutyunyan told reporters on February 14.
According to him, international investors trust the company and are ready to provide the necessary financial resources, but it is necessary to understand that these investments must be returned through tariffs. However, their increase will lead to large-scale social problems. The management of ESA and its owner are doing everything possible to solve the main problems in order to improve the quality of electricity supplies to subscribers. "From 2016 to the present day, the volume of investments has increased fivefold. This happened not only due to attracting credit resources, but also due to its own income. The owner of the company, represented by the Tashir Group of Companies, in accordance with current legislation, had the right to receive annual dividends, but refused them in favor of investment programs. In the period from 2016 to 2023, investment volumes amounted to $680 million. And this despite the fact that the company's loan portfolio today amounts to $280 million," the general director noted.
The CEO also pointed to the growth of the company's image. The international rating agency Moody's assigned CJSC Electric Networks of Armenia a B2 rating, which is the highest in the republic. Only 2-3 companies have a similar rating throughout the region.
As for outages, as Harutyunyan noted, over the past few years this figure has been reduced by 50%. "The subscriber should know that if the duration of outages in Yerevan is more than 4 hours and more than 8 hours in the regions, the company pays him up to 2.5 thousand drams in the form of a fine. At the same time, the subscriber does not need to contact the company, this happens automatically. In the past, About 600 million drams were allocated for these purposes," the general director said.
He recalled that the company has been working with international financial institutions since 2016 - the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as the World Bank represented by IFC. This made it possible to attract loans at interest rates below market rates, and often even lower than the loan funds attracted by the state. Since 2016, when the owner took over the management of the company, loans have been raised without government guarantees.
He also said that one of the main problems of the company today is connecting new subscribers. In 2023, compared to previous years, there was an unprecedented, almost threefold, increase in these connections. Only in terms of population in new residential multi-storey buildings we are talking about connecting 36,648 new subscribers, which is equal to the residents of one city of Abovyan. In the coming years, according to those programs for which there have already been applications and which are predicted, only in Yerevan the number of new connections, mainly from residents of multi- storey residential buildings, will be equal to the consumers of Vanadzor and Gyumri.
In turn, Armen Arshakyan, director for economics and finance at ESA, said that in the period from 2024 to 2030, Electric Networks of Armenia CJSC will invest 461 billion drams or about $500 million in the development of the republic's network economy, which is an unprecedented figure only on the scale of the republic, but throughout the region. Investments will mainly be directed to solving such problems as reducing technical losses and completely eliminating commercial losses, as well as reducing accidents and improving the quality of service to the population. In parallel, serious measures will be taken to expand networks, reduce losses, connect new subscribers, as well as implement charitable and environmental programs. Until 2015, when the company came under the control of the Tashir Group of Companies, on average, investments ranged from 5 to 12 billion drams. Moreover, this work was not ordered; it was more of a situational nature.
Since 2016, Arshakyan continued, 235 billion drams have been invested in the network economy, or an average of 30 billion drams annually excluding VAT. As a result of the measures taken and investments made, technical and commercial losses were reduced to 6.6%.
