The inability of the state electricity company ESM (former ELEM) and their poor planning combined with the inertia of the competent ministries for the first four months of this year made a hole in the country’s foreign exchange reserves of about 300 million euros. Instead of hedging the risk of some increase in the prices of electricity exchanges together with the ESM, the ministries waited in August last year to “fall offside” and in November to reach for the banal and trivial solution, i.e. to declare an energy crisis. With that, they gave themselves legitimacy to pay from the central budget gas for heating Skopje and expensive imported electricity and imbalances at prices on the HUPEX stock exchange. And at the same time they did not move a finger and exposed many private companies and all municipalities and their public utility companies to pay megawatt hours of electricity at prices higher than 200 euros per megawatt hour, reports Faktor.mk.
The supply of imported electricity at stock prices and natural gas from the beginning of January to the end of April melted about 300 million euros from the state foreign exchange reserves of Macedonia.
The official data in the latest exclusive analysis made by Faktor.mk are that the foreign exchange reserves of the country from January to April have been reduced by more than 400 million euros! These are official data published by the National Bank, an institution that organizes and controls the foreign exchange market, which confirms that the demand for foreign exchange and the reduction of foreign exchange reserves are largely due to energy imports.
