German utility E.ON plans to invest 406 million lei ($125.6 million/91 million
euro) in Romania this year mainly in upgrading its gas and electricity
distribution networks, its Romanian arm said on Tuesday.
Its Romanian gas
distributor, E.ON Gaz Distributie, spent 187 million lei last year on
distribution network upgrades and plans to invest a similar amount in 2014, E.ON
said in a statement.
Power distributor E.ON Moldova Distributie plans to
invest 210 million lei in its infrastructure. Last year, the company's
investments totalled 168 million lei.
In 2013, the Romanian branches of
Germany's E.ON invested a combined 369 million lei in the country. E.ON's
combined turnover in Romania dropped to 4.65 billion lei last year, while the
gas and electricity volumes it sold fell 13% on the year to 29.4 terawatt hours
(TWh) in 2013. For this year, the company estimates it will sell similar volumes
of gas and electricity while turnover is seen rising.
The company plans
to double by the end of the year the number of employees at its E.ON Business
Services centre in the northwestern city of Cluj Napoca, which currently employs
250 people in the accounting and human resources fields.
E.ON entered
Romania is 2005 and has invested more than 5.2 billion lei in its local
business.