A power plant project financed by a Chinese fund was officially launched on Friday at Kpone, near Tema, a port city about 35 km northeast of Ghana's capital Accra, with Ghanaian President John Kufuor witnessing the launch ceremony.

The project will be constructed by Sunon Asogli Power (Ghana) Limited, a joint venture co-founded by Chinese power company Shenzhen Energy Investment Co., Ltd and the China-Africa Development Fund (CADF), in cooperation with Togbe Afede XIV, the Paramount Chief of Ghana's southeastern Ho Asogli State.

The gas-stream combined cycle power generation project with a total investment of 1 billion Chinese yuan (US$143 million) is one of the first batch of projects financed by the CADF,a special fund set up in June last year by the Chinese government to encourage Chinese enterprises to expand investment in Africa and promote the continent's economic expansion.

The project, designed to have an installed capacity of 200 megawatts by the end of 2008 and 560 megawatts in total in the future, is expected to substantially supplement power supply in the west African country, where demand for electricity is projected to grow by 6 percent annually in the next 10 years.

The engineering and procurement of machinery and equipment for the project have been completed, according to a press release of the joint venture.

Over the past two months, the company has completed over 970, 000 cubic meters of excavation and filling work, and has almost completed the construction of an access road from Tema-Kpone road to the site. Civil work is about to start.

As one of the biggest foreign investment projects in Ghana, it is expected to offer numerous job opportunities to the locals.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2008)