Italian utility company Enel said on Friday that it plans to invest 329 million euro ($356 million) in Romania in the period 2017-2018.
Enel plans to invest 151 million euro in 2017, mainly in its distribution operations, while next year it plans to put in 178 million euro in network upgrades, the company said in a press release.
"We will continue our investment programme aiming to improve service quality by increasing the degree of automation of distribution networks and by developing our communication channels with customers as well as our value added services offer," Enel Romania country manager, Georgios Stassis, said.
Enel also said that it has invested 3 billion euro on the Romanian market since it entered Romania in 2005, mostly in electricity distribution networks.
In February, Enel was ordered to pay 401.2 million euro for a minority stake in Romanian power distributor Electrica Muntenia Sud, following a decision by the International Chamber of Commerce of Paris in a case filed by Romania,.
Romania filed the case in 2014 seeking to exercise a put option included in the contract for Electrica Muntenia Sud's privatisation, and asked Enel to pay521.6 million euro for a 13.57% stake in the power distributor. According to Romanian media reports, Enel was willing to pay only 300 million euro for the stake. Romania wrapped up the sale of 64.4% of Electrica Muntenia Sud toEnel for 820 million euro in 2008.
In July 2016, Enel won a 1 billion euro arbitration case against Romania which claimed that the company did not respect certain provisions of the privatisation contract. The court ruled that Romania also has to pay 1.5 million euro for the court fees.
(SeeNews, March 24)
