Chongqing Powers Ahead with Huge Hydro Scheme

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 17, 2003

Chongqing Powers Ahead with Huge Hydro Scheme

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Chongqing, the nation's newest municipality, is booming because of the massive Three Gorges project and plans to become the economic and traffic hub of the upper Yangtze River, local officials said on Saturday.

Huang Zhendong, Party secretary of the southwestern municipality and also a deputy to the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), said Chongqing had achieved an average economic growth rate of 8.8 per cent during the past five years. Its gross domestic product has also jumped 46 per cent since 1997 to 197.1 billion yuan (US$23.8 billion) last year.

Wang Hongju, the municipality's mayor, told reporters that Chongqing has made huge headway in tackling the problems of its industrial enterprises and pushing forward the restructuring of its State enterprises.

On the development of its pillar industries such as auto and motorcycle manufacturing, the mayor said Chongqing is already the fourth largest auto producer in the country and possibly the world's biggest motorcycle producer.

"I have not found any other cities in the world which can beat Chongqing in making motorcycles," said Wang.

Local officials said the municipality is undertaking the painstaking task of moving millions of residents to make way for the world's largest hydropower station, the Three Gorges Project.

The dam will begin to fill in June, with the first group of generating units due to start up in October.

Huang said Chongqing is gearing up for the massive project after the authorities moved some 560,000 local people to new homes and cleaned up the reservoir area by the end of 2002.

Hard work aside, the huge relocation effort has also created lucrative opportunities for the municipality, said local officials.

According to Huang Qifan, vice-mayor of the municipality and also a deputy to the 10th NPC, Chongqing will invest a further 100 billion yuan (US$12.1 billion) in infrastructure projects.

He said the city is planning to build another 1,600-kilometre long expressway in the next seven years, extending its length to 2,000 kilometres by the end of 2010.

Chongqing is pinning its hopes on the greatest hydropower project in history and aims to prosper from it, said local officials.

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