The meeting’s most important theme was United Energy Systems (UES) of Russia’s investment programme until 2010. The President was interested in the relationship between large-scale projects to develop the electricity sector and the quantity of investments that the sector is planning to receive during the relevant period.
Anatoly Chubais described the company's investment programme as a balanced one. Along with this, very large-scale tasks must be accomplished: while 1600 megawatts were generated by 2006, 20,000 must be generated by 2010.
In answer to Vladimir Putin’s question about the effectiveness with which funds are being used, Mr Chubais told the President about UES’s proposals to make the appropriate modifications with respect to relations with investors that own shares of the energy company, and to increase the financial responsibility of investors that do not execute the plans for constructing installations.
In connection with this, the head of UES suggested creating a federal ministry that, following the restructuring of UES, would be one of the energy holding’s successors.
The President also asked the Anatolii Chubais about preparing energy systems for the winter. The head of the management board of UES assured the President that next winter Russia will be able to reduce the number of regions that can potentially have peak loads. He explained this by pointing out that new generating capacities, electricity networks, substations and transformers are being introduced in Russia.