News item | 03-07-2023 | 13:13
The year 2022 was a good year for most state participations, companies in which the state is a shareholder. The Annual Report State Holdings 2022, published today, looks back on 2022. There were also major challenges last year, the after-effects of the corona measures, the war in Ukraine resulting in the energy crisis, the rapidly rising prices and the great tightness on the labor market. Nevertheless, the participations have made an important contribution to the Dutch economy.
This is the first annual report since the new participation policy. A lot of attention is paid to corporate social responsibility (CSR); one of the spearheads of Minister Kaag. A newly designed dashboard shows the status of the implementation of the new participations policy.
Acceleration in energy transition
The scaling down of the corona measures resulted in a further recovery of the Dutch economy, which gave an impulse to state participations such as KLM and NS. The war in Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis accelerated the energy transition. For example, Gasunie has ensured that we are less dependent on Russian gas through the rapid realization of extra LNG capacity. TenneT continued to make major investments in the onshore and offshore electricity grid. The participations Invest-NL and Invest International also took major steps in accelerating the energy transition last year by investing in innovative, green companies
CSR dashboard
In 2022, Minister Kaag presented her new participation policy. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is high on the agenda.
For example, a lot of attention is paid to themes such as transparency, climate and the environment, being a good employer with an eye for a representative male/female ratio, inclusion and diversity, human rights and financial transparency and anti-corruption. The ministry expects participating interests to pursue sound policies and formulate clear objectives on all these themes. How far we have come as shareholders with these themes can now be followed on a newly designed dashboard.
Minister Kaag: Participating interests serve as an example in their sector and I think it is important that they act accordingly by taking into account the effect of their activities on people, society and the environment. I therefore expect participations to be at the forefront of the climate transition. The same goes for diversity and inclusion. Diversity in an organization gives more power to the imagination. This ensures more innovation, productivity and – ultimately – financial robustness.
After financially difficult years due to the corona pandemic, the results have improved on average over the past two years and most participations have made a profit. As a result, there is once again room to pay out more dividend this year.