According to an agreement signed by the Beijing International Power Development Corporation and the Inner Mongolia Power Group earlier recently, the first phase construction is to absorb 4.8 billion yuan (578 million U.S. dollars) of investment.

Liu Haiyan, vice mayor of Beijing said, during China's 10th five-year plan period (2001 to 2005), electricity is expected to constitute 40 percent of the city's energy supply and the increased power supply would help improve the environment in the capital.

Zhao Fengshan, general manager of the Inner Mongolia Power Group, said the new power plant will be located at Zhenglan Banner, Xilin Gol League in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Xing Huanlou, general manager of the Beijing International Power Development Corporation said, Beijing started to build jointly-funded power plants with Inner Mongolia 10 years ago and his company invested over 2 billion yuan (240 million U.S. dollars) in building three power plants in Inner Mongolia.

In the year 2000, the western Inner Mongolia electricity network transmitted 7 billion kilowatt hours, which accounted for 20 percent of Beijing's power supply.

(People's Daily 04/20/2001)