Gorges project to cost less
( 2002-11-02 09:14 ) ()

China's gigantic Three Gorges Dam project will cost 20 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion) less than originally planned when it is completed in 2009 after 16 years of work, the corporation in charge of construction said yesterday.

The final cost will be 180 billion yuan (US$21.69 billion), the China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corp said. In the meantime, constructors are working to ensure the quality of hundreds of thousands of individual projects.

The Three Gorges corporation also said the dam will be able to generate 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. Its permanent locks will allow ships of more than 10,000 dead-weight tonnage to pass.

The revised budget was announced days before the damming of a canal for the passage of ships. The damming, a key part of the second phase of the project's construction, is scheduled to begin next Wednesday.

An on-site headquarters has been set up for the damming work. The chief superviser will be Peng Qiyou, head of the corporation's engineering and construction department.

Zhang Chaoran, the corporation's chief engineer, said yesterday that the 130,000 individual projects completed so far as part of the overall Three Gorges project have all been up to the required quality.

Zhang said 80.94 per cent of the finished work has been deemed of "high quality."

While building the gigantic water-control project, the development corporation and other construction organizations have all strictly adhered to quality requirements and have established a monitoring system to exercise quality control over the whole process, from the procurement of raw materials to on-site construction, said Zhang.

A panel of experts has been working under the State Council's Committee for the Construction of the Three Gorges Project since 1999 to tighten supervision and quality control.

The dam is being built 40 kilometres from the city of Yichang in Central China's Hubei Province. It will be 2,309 metres long and 185 metres high.

Xinhua contributed to this story