CEZ Group has entered the Hungarian power market

CEZ Group has today officially opened its sales agency in Budapest to support its activities in Hungary. The Hungarian agency will expand CEZ Group´s trade network, which includes, together with the Czech Republic and Hungary, also Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. In the near future, CEZ Group is going to open sales agencies in other countries in the region of South-Eastern Europe.

CEZ has clearly declared its vision of becoming number one on the electricity market in Central and South-Eastern Europe, however, the expansion is not being carried out only through acquisitions of new companies, but also through opening new businesses. I believe that today opened sales agency of CEZ Group will significantly extend the electricity offer for traders, sellers and end customers on the Hungarian market, said at the opening of the agency Martin Roman, Chairman of the Board and CEO of CEZ.CEZ Group´s subsidiary company in Hungary has already obtained all permits needed for trading and made its first deal in May. Our goal is to gain and establish a trade position on the Hungarian market. We will concentrate not only on domestic market trading at the first stage, but also on cross boarder electricity dealings, added Gabor Hornai, director of the Hungarian sales agency, who has been a long-standing expert in the Hungarian power market.

Within its foreign expansion, CEZ Group has succeeded in the field of electricity distribution as well as in gaining production sources. Since 2005, it has owned three distribution companies in Bulgaria. At the end of last year, CEZ acquired also the Romanian distribution company Electrica Oltenia, which supplies electricity in the area adjacent to the Bulgarian distribution area of CEZ Group. Regarding the area of electricity production, CEZ has recently accomplished acquisitions of two Polish power companies Elcho and Skawina, and at the beginning of May it concluded a privatization contract for a purchase of the Bulgarian thermal power plant Varna.

Eva Novakova, Press Officer, CEZ, a.s.

1. 6. 2006