Press releases pg. 183

"CEZ has generated for the first quarter of this year the profits after taxes amounting to CZK 2,937 million, i.e. more by 268 % compared with the preceding year. This considerable growth is due mainly to the favorable development of provisions for exchange-rate variances. Whereas the development of the rate of exchange decreased in the first quarter of the last year our net profits by CZK 1.6 billion..."

The power-generation company CEZ had established in the end of the last year its daughter joint-stock company CEZTel to operate a digital communication network built during the nineties for the needs of the power engineering sector.

With the aim to provide for the largest in its history and, regarding the price, the most efficient resource of CEZ current financing, a P/Ns Program had been set up last March amounting to CZK five billion for the period of three years. Recently the P/Ns Program has been increased up to the total volume of CZK nine billion.

Simultaneously with desulphurization of its power plants, the power-generation company CEZ has been paying its attention also to other areas of protection of the environment, i.e. the use of waste. Almost a half of energy by-products were used last year as secondary materials, and CEZ intends to even increase the percentage.