Apr 18, 2011
By Daniel Ten Kate
Bloomberg Markets Magazine
Laos will meet with neighboring Mekong River countries today in an effort to win their approval for a planned $3.8 billion hydropower dam and allay concerns it would disrupt fish catches and rice production downstream.
The Xayaburi hydropower plant is the first of about 10 dams the government plans to build on the mainstream Mekong, which runs from China’s Tibetan plateau through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Lao officials will make the final decision on plans for its biggest electricity plant to date after today’s meeting.
“The government will consider the concerns of the riparian countries and try to convince them of the advantages,” Daovong Phonekeo, deputy director general of Laos’s Department of Electricity, said by phone from Vientiene, the capital. “The project is necessary because our country is less developed. We don’t have other means to increase revenue.”
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