PARIS, April 10, 2002 -- Aguas Argentinas informed Argentinean stock market authorities of its decision to temporarily postpone the repayment of its project finance debt, which was mainly incurred with multilateral institutions.
Thus Aguas Argentinas will dedicate its financial resources to ensuring the continuity of the services it provides to 8 million inhabitants of Buenos Aires.
This decision falls within the framework of a renegotiation provided for within Argentinean Public Urgency legislation, over a period of 180 days starting from March 2002, after the 1:1 parity of the US dollar with the Argentinean peso was rescinded.
Aguas Argentinas intends to develop and propose a plan to reestablish the economic and financial balance of the concession contract, in association with the public authorities.
Over the last 9 years, Aguas Argentinas made investments that, in particular, gave a further 2.7 million inhabitants access to the town's water supply.
The total duration of the contract is 30 years. SUEZ owns 46% of Aguas Argentinas.
Suez is a global services group and international player in the Energy, Water, and Waste Services businesses. The Group has 190,000 employees at work in 130 countries. It generated 2001 revenues of EUR 42.4 million, 54.6% of which originated outside the Group's domestic markets of France and Belgium.
Suez is listed on Euronext Paris and Euronext Brussels, as well as on the Luxembourg, Zurich and New York Stock Exchanges. It is the only name from its sector represented on every major international index: MSI Europe (Morgan Stanley Index), FTSE Eurotrop 100, Eurostoxx 50 and the CAC 40. According to the World Investment Report 2001 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development - UNCTAD), Suez is ranked 19th in the world among companies with the greatest international presence, and 2nd among French companies so listed.
This release is also available on Internet: http://www.suez.com .
