Vietnam is encouraging both domestic and foreign investors to build power plants and transmission lines to ensure that the local electricity sector will serve its socioeconomic development with a targeted economic growth of 8.5-9 percent from 2006 to 2010, local media reported Thursday.
According to a plan on national electricity development between 2006 and 2015 recently approved by the government, Vietnam's electricity demand is estimated to annually increase 17-22 percent in the period, said Youth newspaper.
The sector will meet national demand by 2009 if all power projects run according to schedule, Vietnam News newspaper quoted Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry Bui Xuan Khu as saying.
In Vietnam, hundreds of power plants are currently operating, including 34 with capacity of over 100 MW each, he said, adding that the country should invest billions of U.S. dollars in building more electricity facilities in the next few years.
Now, some 6 percent of households in Vietnam, mostly in remote and mountainous areas, live without electricity. The government plans to make electricity accessible nationwide by 2010.
Source: Xinhua
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