spic toutiao platform: belt and road initiative: sep takes malta project as model, eyes european expansion
since 2012, sep has been proactively implementing the "going global" development strategy proposed by the chinese government, and seeking for energy cooperation projects along the belt and road with the strong support from its parent company spic.
in june 2013, a team of sep senior executives were invited to visit malta, where they met with the maltese government led by malta labor party, and the latter expressed strong wishes to enter into strategic partnership with sep in order to promote the transformation and development of the country's energy market. during the summer davos held in dalian in september 2013, maltese energy ministry and china power investment corporation, the former parent company of sep, signed an mou on the cooperation in the energy sector of malta, under the witness of maltese prime minister, which kicked off the investment and cooperation project package by sep in maltese energy sector (malta project).
thanks to the powerful support from the parent company, sep gave full play to its management, technology and capital strengths, and signed a package cooperation agreement with enemalta plc, malta's only state-owned energy company, on december 12, 2014. according to the agreement, sep established sep (malta) holding limited (sepm) as the overall operation platform of malta project, and sepm invested a total of 320 million euros, including 100 million euros to acquire 33.3 percent shares of enemalta plc and 150 million euros for the acquisition of 90 percent stake of delimara 3, a major power plant in the country. besides, sepm and enemalta jointly established international renewable energy development ltd. and international energy service center, in order to advance the development of new energy projects in malta and europe as well as the electricity service market in the circum-mediterranean region. on december 31, 2014, sep completed the assets delivery of malta project, marking a key milestone in spic's european energy project.
since january 1, 2015, sepm has started localized operation, and has preliminarily formed an international management team with average age of 36 and all the 36 employees coming from seven countries including china, malta, greece, portugal, italy, serbia and macedonia and their working locations in malta and the european continent. since its operation, sepm has been positively drawn on local management culture in europe and established a set of high-efficient and practical international management system in accordance with spic's value concept of "harmony" culture and sep's management and control requirements on overseas companies, and has realized seamless connection with various tasks of sep and its subsidiaries through an overall flattened management process.
the team of sepm is always permeated with the atmosphere of "family" culture. the senior management set up a good example in daily work, established the working philosophy of "contribution and striving", kept a good working style for the core team at work and on this basis, attracted chinese and foreign employees close to each other, and carried on with the keynote of "family" culture after work and enhanced interaction among employees. as employees of various nationalities recognized each other gradually and their sense of distance disappeared gradually, the centripetal force and coordination ability of the team as well as the sense of belonging of the staff strengthened gradually, sepm's core value of "trust, striving, enthusiasm and innovation" directed the whole team to create a new situation of continuously developing various projects and sectors.
since the project went into operation, sepm and its partner enemalta has established a communication mechanism based on mutual trust, introduced sep's capital, technology and vitality into enemalta to promote the latter's transformation. sepm also appointed senior executives to participate in the management enhancement of enemalta. due to active progress of its reform, enemalta has successfully turned around with realizing stable profits for two consecutive years from the verge of bankruptcy in 2014. consequently, maltese government fulfilled the promise of reducing the power tariff by 25 percent for residential and commercial users, with the power grid reliability improved, non-technical line losses and annual average power outage hours reduced, and the comprehensive investment environment of malta enhanced.
following over two years' hard work, sepm achieved stable operation rooted in malta, and the company realized profits since the first year of investment and has maintained steady cash flows and became the first overseas corporate entity to realize localized operation in europe within spic. at present, the investment returns from existing assets provide stable capital support for the development of new projects, and the ongoing development of projects in montenegro and other countries makes the first bridge for sepm to march onto the european continent. meanwhile, sepm has been actively implementing its social responsibility in the local region, participating in various public welfare activities under the guidance of chinese embassy in malta, disseminating the china-proposed belt and road initiative in different forms, and has established a good international brand image for spic and sep in malta.
since 2017, sepm has been closely focusing on the strategic goal of building a european regional development platform, integrating with the characteristics of multiple business types and complicated transaction structure, and vigorously pushing forward the company's regional operation and international management team construction. the company has kicked off initial work in a number of crucial focuses, including overall management and control model, human resources allocation, regional finance management and control and multinational legal management and control system, and has gained staged results.
looking ahead, sepm will continue to uphold spic's concept of "treating strivers as the backbone", fully leverage the demonstration effect of malta project, make every solid step of european market development, realize the model effect of sep overseas investment and make contributions to achieving sep's european strategic planning and multinational operation objective.
