One of the major Chinese undertakers of the world's largest hydropower project -- at the Three Gorges on China's Yangtze River -- has won the bidding to contract the largest hydropower project in Africa.

It will be equal to the construction scale of the Three Gorges Project itself.

The China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Corporation (CWHEC) will ink the contract to build the Tekeze Hydro-Power Project (THPP) in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, on June 7, company sources said here Friday.

The contract, involving US$224 million of investment, will be the largest cooperative project between China and an African country.

Sun Yue, director of the international cooperation department of the CWHEC, said that the importance of the THPP to Ethiopia is equal to that of the Three Gorges to China.

Ethiopia, though abounding in water resources, has less than a five-percent utilization rate of its total reserves of water.

The Tekeze River, on which the THPP will be built, is a tributary of the Nile system, Sun said.

The main structure of the concrete dam of the THPP is designed in the shape of a hyperbola and of 185 meters high -- 10 meters higher than that of the Three Gorges Dam, Sun said, adding that the dam construction will be a challenge to any hydropower undertaker.

The CWHEC is one of China's most prestigious electrical engineering companies, having undertaken nearly 80 percent of the large and medium-sized hydropower projects in China. It ranked 136th among the world's Top 225 construction contractors in 1999 and 2000.

The CWHEC beat Strabag of Germany, Salini and Imperglio of Italy, Kajima and Enka of Japan, Satcon of Ethiopia, and Skanska and Group 5 of Austria in the bid for the THPP.

(Xinhua News Agency June 1, 2002)