[Aju News DB]
The Vietnamese government said Wednesday it has awarded a $2 billion power-plant project to a consortium of South Korea’s Taekwang Power Holdings and Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power.
Taekwang Power Holdings is an affiliate of South Korea’s largest shoe manufacturer Taekwang Industry, which has diversified its business portfolio into energy.
Taekwang Industry, an OEM supplier of athletic shoes to major international brands such as Nike, took over Korea Electric Power Services, a subsidiary of the state-run Korea South-East Power, in 2014 before bidding for Vietnam’s energy projects.
Vietnam faces a shortage in power supply amid the developing country's ever-increasing demand for electricity to fuel economic expansion.
The planned coal-fired Nam Dinh 1 plant in northern Vietnam’s Nam Dinh province will have a designed capacity of 1,200 megawatts, Vietnam’s trade ministry said in a statement
The project is scheduled to start in mid-2016 after eight years of negotiations and will use coal provided by Vietnam's state coal mining group Vinacomin, the statement said.
The consortium will build and then operate the plant for a certain period of time before handing it over to the Vietnamese government.
By Alex Lee
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
