YANGON, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- A China-Myanmar joint venture gas power plant, Thaketa, will be able to start to supply electricity to Yangon city and the region by the end of this year and can ease the electricity shortage to some extent which Yangon is faced with, a high project official said on Sunday.
General Manager of the Thaketa gas power plant Dong Fan told Chinese ambassador Hong Liang and his entourage, who visited the workers engaged in the project, that the project will reach 72 megawatts' (mw) installed capacity by this year-end and will add another 34 mw in February 2018 to complete the first phase of the project.
The first phase of the project was corner-stoned on May 12, 2016, according to which the installed capacity of the first phase project is 106 mw and is targeted to be completed and put into service by March 2018.
Hong urged the workers to do well with the project which lies in Thaketa township, 16 kilometers east of Yangon and 25.6 km away from the Thilawa Special Economic Zone .
The project is invested by a China-Myanmar joint venture, U Energy Thaketa Power Co, Ltd, involving China's Union Resources and Engineering Co Ltd (UREC) and Myanmar's Ministry of Electricity and Power.
A memorandum of understanding on the project was signed in January 2013 and the memorandum of agreement was signed in November 2014.
The joint venture got the operating license on Jan. 25, 2016.