Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya have agreed to speed up the implementation of the interconnector project that will link up their power grids before 2009, the official Times of Zambia newspaper reported Friday.

Ending their three-day meeting in Zambian capital Lusaka Thursday, officials from the three countries expressed their concern over the slow progress of the 350 million US dollar project that will allow electricity-surplus Zambia to export energy to its neighbors.

John Wright, manager of the Office for the Promotion of Private Power Investment, said the meeting discussed the way forward in finishing the preparations and go into actual implementation.

Rhodney Sisala, managing director of the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO), said it is the view of the meeting that financing will not be a major impediment as some international financial institutions have shown interest towards the project.

The project involves the building of a 700-km transmission line between Zambia and Tanzania, the reinforcement of the 600-km transmission line in Tanzania and the building of the transmission line from Arusha in Tanzania to Nairobi in Kenya.

To expand its supply capacity, Zambia has embarked on an ambitious plan to raise its generating capacity from 1,608 megawatts to 4,500 megawatts before 2010.

The plan involves the rehabilitation of three existing power plants at a cost of 140 million dollars and the building of two plants with a total costs of 720 million dollars.

The meeting also discussed the expansion of the project to supply power to Rwanda, but no concrete agreement was reached.

Source: Xinhua