Chubais Says RAO UES Companies Close To Financial Recovering

Companies of the Russian national energy utility RAO UES (Unified Energy Systems) are close to full financial recovering, RAO UES chief executive officer Anatoly Chubais announced at a meeting of the Duma committee for transport, energy and communications. He noted that this became possible, in the first place, due to a rise in bank transfers in payments for electricity supplies. He recalled that consumers used barter payments for 80 % of electricity in 1998 and now, in 2001, they repay 100% of supplies by bank transfers.