A Chinese firm has started building a Vietnamese-invested thermoelectricity power plant with a capacity of 600 MW in northern Quang Ninh province, local newspaper Saigon Liberation reported Tuesday.
The Chinese firm, Shanghai Electric, started the construction of the plant, invested by Vietnam's Quang Ninh thermoelectricity joint stock company with a capital of nearly 9,326 billion VND (US$583 million), on Monday in Ha Long city, which has abundant coal resources.
The plant, scheduled to become operational in December 2009, will supply annually 3.6 billion kwh electricity to the country, the newspaper said.
Vietnam's electricity demand is forecast to annually grow 15-16 percent until 2010, according to the country's Industry Ministry. It plans to increase its electricity capacity to 25,000-26,000 MW in 2010 from 11,400 MW in 2005, meeting demand for its socio- economic development.