China's Top Legislator Inspects Three Gorges Project

China's Top Legislator Inspects Three Gorges Project

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Construction workers at the Three Gorges Project on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River were told to complete the second phase with greater care, responsibility and higher quality.

The call was made by Li Peng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and also Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, during an inspection tour of the Three Gorges Project from October 5-7.

At the construction site, Li listened carefully to work reports by officials from the China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corp. and on-the-site project leaders, and asked about problems occurring during construction.

While conveying season' greetings to workers who have stayed at their work posts during the October 1-7 National Day holiday, Li urged the workers to bear in mind that quality is essential for Three Gorges Project and effective measures should be taken to intensify quality control.


China's Top Legislator Inspects Three Gorges Project

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Li stressed the necessity for establishing a complete set of quality guarantee systems to ensure a high quality in constructing the Three Gorges Project.

The Three Gorges Project, situated near Yichang City in central China's Hubei Province, consists of a 1,983-meter-long by 185- meter-tall dam and 26 electricity-generating units with a combined capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts.

The project, which began construction in 1993, will take 17 years to finish. It will be completed in three phases. The first phase was closed by damming of the main stream of the Yangtze River in 1997. The second phase will end with operation of the first group of generators and permanent ship locks put into service in 2003.

The project will be fully completed in 2009. By then, the project will be able to generate 84.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and allow a fleet of more than 10,000 deadweight tons to pass.

In the first eight months this year, the quality of some 11,387 individual works of the project, including 9,166 concrete works, passed assessment, with 85.8 percent rated as good.