China's second largest hydropower station will start construction in late December and is expected to boost the local economy, said Wang Huaichen, vice-governor of Sichuan Province in southwest China.

Xiluodu Hydropower Station, with about 67 billion yuan (US$8.27 billion) of investment, is expected to bring about 300 million yuan (US$37.04 million) of revenue to Sichuan annually when it is completed, Wang said.

The hydropower station is located at the Xiluodu Gorge at the border areas between Leibo County in Sichuan Province and Yongshan County in Yunnan Province at the lower reaches of the Jinsha River,an upstream branch of the Yangtze River.

It would be the second largest hydropower project after the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze. The station will be installed with about 12.6 million kilowatts of generation capacity and 11.57billion cubic meters of sluice capacity.

Construction of the hydropower station is part of China's West-to-East Electricity Transmission Project, which aims to transfer power from the hydropower-rich southwest to the electricity-thirsty east.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2005)