Associated Press
January 10, 2006

China has won a bid to help construct a dam on a Nile River tributary that will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric project and 10 metres taller than the Three Gorges dam.

Beijing: A Chinese company that helped build the massive Three Gorges Dam has been chosen for Africa’s largest hydroelectric project, a dam on a Nile tributary in Ethiopia, state-run media in China reported. The China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Corp. won a $224 million contract to help build the dam on the Tekeze River, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Friday. The contract will be signed June 7 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the report said. It said the Chinese company beat out bidders from Germany, Italy and Japan. The company, a state-owned electrical engineering concern, was one of the key builders of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in central China, the world’s largest hydroelectric project. The African dam will be a bow-shaped concrete wall. At 610 feet, it will be 33 feet taller than the Chinese dam, but will have less electrical generating capacity, Xinhua said.