Generales des Eaux - new Bucharest water supplier

(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 22)

French company Generales des Eaux (GE), part of Vivendi group, won the international tender for concession of water and sewage services organised by Bucharest City Hall on Monday, offering the lowest tariff per cubic metre of water. International Water Ltd from Great Britain and another French company, Suez Lyonaise des Eaux, attended the tender as well. GE obtained the first position following the analysis of tariffs offered for the next 16 years, suggesting an average tariff of 2,054 lei per cubic metre of water, namely 3,626 lei for the first four years, gradually decreasing to 1,171 lei in 15 years. International Water Ltd (IWL) suggested an average tariff of 2,683.41 lei, while the tariff proposed by the second French company amounted to 3,488.25 lei. The cubic metre of water in Bucharest currently costs 3,370 lei. Tariffs are to be adjusted according to the inflation rate and the domestic currency devaluation against the dollar. “We are world leaders in this field and we know what we are doing,” Jean-Patrice Poirier, GE development manager for Eastern Europe told Ziarul Financiar. “We won the tender for Berlin, where we carry on one of the greatest programmes in this field, but we lost in Sofia, as well as in Santiago de Chile. We know exactly what we are doing here, we know Romania very well and we believe in its future. For the beginning, we will invest about 35 million dollars from own sources, then we will finance our investments from loans,” Poirier added. Dominique Douince, business vice-president of Lyonaise des Eaux, said that the suggestions made by his co-nationals “depend on their programme” and that they would not work together with GE within this contract. Bucharest City Council on Thursday is to validate the result of the tender. “I have paid attention to details and I can tell you that there are no suspicions concerning the tender. We all wish to have high quality services for low tariffs,” said PDSR (Party of Social Democracy) councilor Radu Dumbraveanu. In 1998, Vivendi posted turnover of some 40 billion euros, one fifth coming from water deals, through the group Generales des Eaux.