THE QUESTION OF CERTAIN RESULTS OF PRIVATISING THE ELECTRIC POWER INDUSTRY OF RUSSIA

The relevance of the study comes from the fact that, in the Russian Federation, there are not only the enterprises but also the entire branches of the economy (for example, gas industry) having a considerable proportion of government property and standing at different stages of denationalization. In this connection, the author considers useful to study the historical experience of privatizing the electric power industry in order to obtain the higher economic effect.

The electric power industry is of special value due to its presence in all engineering processes and the simplicity and convenience of its utilization. Consequently, the electric power industry can be considered the basic industry of national economic complex of Russia, the basis for the functioning of the economy and its life-support systems. Its sustainable development and technical condition influence directly not only the prospects of progressive development of the entire national economic complex but allow providing the desired level of energy security of the country in the whole. The policymakers’ ambitious plans for securing the economic growth cannot be implemented without adequate production volume of the electric power industry while meeting the “GOST-determined” criteria of its quality.

In this paper, the author considers the issues appeared within the electric power industry in the mid-1980s (stagnation) that led to the decrease in a number of key industry-specific indicators. They included the decrease in the amount of financing the industry, the decline of the index of production of industrial products of the electric power industry, the slowing down of basic production assets formation.

The analysis of statistical data for the period from 1985 to 1997 is carried out. The author studied the prerequisites for the necessity to privatize the electric power industry, the main of which for that period was the critical economic status of the industry due to the presence of negative factors both the external and the internal (the deficiency of investment and material and technical resources, decline in manufacturing output, wear and tear on plant and equipment). Special aspects of privatization of the electric power industry and new industry structure are described.

The author summarized this stage of reforming and made the conclusion that allowed saying that only one objective of this stage of reforming was achieved (sustainable electrical servicing for consumers).