Financial Times
January 7, 2003

Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have agreed to fully tap hydroelectric potential in their seven border provinces at a recent seminar in Hanoi.

The seven provinces, including Kon Tum, Gia Lai and Dak Lak  in Vietnam, Stung Treng and Ratanakiri in Cambodia, and Attopeu and Sekong in Laos, have an estimated power potential of 25bn kWh a year.

Demand for electricity by the seven provinces will increase from 403m kWh in 2002 to 1,640m kWh a year by 2010. Gia Lai is to build the two hydropower plants of Se San 3 and Se San 3A with a combined capacity of 360 MW. It has recently put the 720 MW Yaly Hydropower Plant into operation. Vietnam will gradually build eight more power projects with a total capacity of 1,433 MW in the three provinces from now to 2010. Meanwhile, Laos will also build two more power plants, Sepian Senamnop and Sekaman 1, in the next few years.

Power consumption has not been the same among the seven provinces. The number of people having access to electricity accounts for 82% in Vietnam, 34% in Cambodia and
15% in Laos. Vietnam’s Dak Lak province leads in electricity consumption among the provinces with 150 kWh per capita a year while the figure of Cambodia’s Stung Treng
Province is only 25 kWh.