Cambodia is seeking $3 billion of foreign investment to build six hydro-power plants and a coal-fired power station to meet rapidly growing energy demand, industry minister Suy Sem said on December 03.
The hydro plants, to be completed by 2016, and the coal plant, which is due to be finished two years later, will provide more than 1,000 megawatts of power in the south-east Asian nation, where energy consumption is rising at 25 percent each year.
"Our goal is to lower the price of electricity to attract more investment. We need to produce more electricity," Suy Sem told Reuters in an interview. Cambodia, whose economy is now growing at nearly 10 percent a year after decades of civil war and unrest, currently produces only 300 megawatts, and unit prices of around $0.2 a kilowatt hour are double neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.
A Chinese company has already started a $360 million project in the north-west province of Pursat to produce 120 megawatts by 2011.
Cambodia, which imports nearly all its petroleum from its neighbours, is hoping to produce oil within three years from an offshore block of the Gulf of Thailand being surveyed by US giant Chevron Corp.