In 2001 MOSENERGO plans to reduce its debt deficit by 5.8 billion rubles. The power company Deputy General Director Vitaly Kuzmin announced the plan at a briefing held today. Kuzmin said that at the start of this year consumer debt was 12.4 billion rubles, but that for the whole of last year it had gone down from 15.7 billion rubles. He also pointed out that customers are starting to repay their debts, this trend emerged in the second half of 2000.

MOSENERGO allocated 249 million rubles worth of power to the FOREM tenders and received 270 million in return. Currently MOSENERGO's credit debt (debts on payments for fuel and payments to other suppliers) is about 14 billion rubles. The company intends to reduce this debt proportionately intact with the lowering of debt deficit. According to Kuzmin, each week a special commission on debt repayments convenes specifically to look at the issue of restructuring the debts of 500 to 700 companies and institutions. Kuzmin also noted the UES order, issued in May 2000, banning mutual offsets and other forms of non-monetary payments. Before the start of 2001 MOSENERGO changed provisions of earlier signed contracts with customers in which the mutual offset scheme of payments was used.