Director General Three Gorges Corporation Wang Shoofeng has said that Chinese experts are working in Pakistan to provide expertise to its people in power generation field and free of cost operational changes to Wapda and within next 10 years they will be successful to facilitate Pakistan with 10,000 megawatts power generation. He was talking to the Pakistani media delegation on Sunday which is on tour to China to study Pakistan-China river civilisation. The director general of Three Gorges Corporation (a company that constructed one of the biggest hydropower project in the world named Three Gorges Dam) said that three gorges project was helping China to invest in more countries and in 30 years more than 25 projects would be completed in People’s Republic of China. Shoofeng maintained that if Pakistan and China did not extend cooperation in economic sector, it would go wasted. Several hydroelectric projects were running in Pakistan that would be completed on priority basis as Pakistan was suffering due to energy crisis.
“We want to invest more in Pakistan as per its environment and location. Therefore, we have signed several agreements and memorandums with Pakistani ministries, government and Wapda. Three Gorges Corp will like to provide expertise to Pakistanis first than people of any other country of the world. Our business in Pakistan should be comprehensive as we desire to support Pakistan”, he maintained. He said wind and solar projects were also initiated in Pakistan while Kohala project was under way with a total costs of 2 billion US dollars. “This project is near Mangla and it would generate 720 MW power”. He said presently his company was completing Chengdu and Bhasha projects in China. He said that Kohala project in Pakistan should have been approved in May 2009 by Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) but they were told that due to the media propaganda it was approved two years late. He said he wanted to help Pakistan’s energy sector as China needed Pakistan in future. He urged the media to provide exact information to the people of Pakistan regarding the Kohala project.
Meanwhile, Sha Xianhua vice president of the Corporation informed the delegation that Chinese government was encouraging businessmen to invest in Pakistan like in hydroelectric projects. He said Three Gorges Corp was trying to bring more hydropower projects to Pakistan so that economic growth of the country could make Pakistanis prosper and elevate their way of living. Earlier, Pakistani media delegation visited site of the Three Gorges Dam, control centre of the power plants, power production centre and its model house. The delegation was briefed that project covers 3,800 km long river. Its power generation capacity is 22,500 megawatts and power transmitting distance is 1,000 km including 11 provinces and its particular districts. The construction completed in three phases; from 1993 to 1997, 1998 to 2003 and finally from 2004 till 2009 all the phases were completed. It was told that 1.2 million people took part its construction among the experts.
The project is declared safe for floods as some 214 floods-hit China, the worst of which was in 1998 and due to non-availability of such project China lost many precious lives, houses and its infrastructure. The Chinese experts while replying a question said that the project also aimed at protecting environment. That was the reason the project was also linked to facilitate agriculture and horticulture sectors. The Three Gorges Dam project was built with a total cost of 180 billion Yuan that was 20 billion Yuan less than actual cost estimated at 200 billion Yuan. It was because of accuracy. The delegation was told that Corp intended to take up more projects in many countries till 2020. “40,000 employees are working for the Corporation,” he said adding the project’s capacity would be increased to 40,000 megawatt some other relevant projects were under way. He disclosed that maximum level of storage of the dam is 39.5 cubic sq meters, 84.87 billion megawatts was its annual production and last year on October 25 the highest level in the project was recorded 178 meters.
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