HANOI (AFP) – Laos on Thursday its largest hydropower plant inaugurated, a controversial project hailed by supporters as decisive for the impoverished nation's development, but long opposition from environmentalists.
Asian Development (ADB) said the move opened "a new era" for growth, development and poverty reduction in the Communist country, where most people still live on less than two dollars a day.
"The importance of this hydroelectric projects to the Lao economy cannot be overemphasised," said president Haruhiko Kuroda, ADB, at a ceremony to officially inaugurate the Nam Theun 2 power station.
Critics say tens of thousands of people continue to be affected by the project, which has been ravaged by years of controversy.
After five years of construction and development costs more than $ 1.4 billion plant started supplying neighbouring Thailand with power in March.
With a production capacity of 1,070 MW owned joint development of Communist Laos, Electricite de France and Electricity Generating Public Company in Thailand.
Project on the Nam Theun River, a tributary of the Mekong, contributes two billion dollars to Laos-medium during its first 25 years, according to the company, the operation of it.
"Funds earmarked for basic education and health service improvement, rural electrification and other national poverty poverty alleviation programs," said ADB.
According to said an advance copy of his speech, Kuroda project will also reduce this country's dependence on international aid and to contribute to the deeper integration of the greater Mekong surroundings.
Laos, a highly dependent on foreign donors, rural-based society has a population of approximately six million.
ADB said power project contributes seven to nine percent of the country's national budget and approximately three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
GDP was last year nearly $ 5.6 billion.
However, environmentalists long-accepted Nam Theun 2 project.
United States-based watchdog international rivers says there are still questions about sustainability for supplies for more than 6 000 villagers moved for the dam, and tens of thousands more downstream.
-There is way too early to call this project a success, "says Ikuko Matsumoto, Lao Program Director for the group.
ADB said the vast majority of the villagers moved to consider their lives better.
"It is, of course, still challenges to ensure sustainable supply of affected people, monitor and respond to downstream impacts and protect area watershed which constitutes one of the few remaining wildernesses in the planet," said Kuroda.
Logging and outside commercial interests threaten the area's natural resources, constitutes a major challenge, says the statement from ADB, 120 million dollars in the dam.
French Foreign Trade Minister Pierre Lellouche called project's concern for the environment and the population "exemplary."
Most power goes to Thailand, but also the installation complies with up to 20% of peak demand, said Lao EL operator Nam Theun 2 companies (NT2).
"NT2 has defied the doubters who claimed such a complicated project could not be done in a poor country," said Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Executive Director of the World Bank Group, which is supervised and monitored.
Eight additional dams on the Mekong River, suggest the mainstream in Laos.
The project "could have profound and wide-ranging socio-economic and environmental consequences", a study released in October by the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental consultative bodies.
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