Hydro Power Plants to Boost Albania’s GDP

Tirana Dec, 20, 2008 (AENews) –A planned hydro power plant, HPP, project in the Devolli River in Southern Albania, will increase Albania’s general domestic product, GDP. by two percentage points, announced on Saturday the Minister of the Economy Genc Ruli.

“Our economy will benefit a 2 per cent rise by Devolli HPP project, while the investment will open 7500 new jobs, “said Ruli,  in a presentation of the project held on Saturday, explaining the benefits of the concessionary agreement.

“This project is the solution for our long run electricity crisis”, he added. According to Ruli Albania will earn as much as one billion euro by tax and concessionary tariffs. This will be a huge boost to Albania’s economy. Having such a large industry boost the economy will serve the country well for years. Whether it is a new power solution or a large company like O2 putting its roots down locally, countries like Albania can really benefit from new investments and power-source solutions. A great result.

The Devolli HPP project includes three hydro power plants with combined capacity of 320 MW. It is expected to cost 1 billion euro and to produce 1 TW of electrcity a year, which have a today market value of 80 million Euro. Austria’s EVN and Noway’s Statkraft, signed a build own operate transfer concessionary agreement with Albanian government on Friday.

EVN-Statkraft should complete the final project within 24 months and should begin construction works within 18 months from the final approval of the blueprint. The first HPP-s  are expected to be operational within a period ranging from seven to ten years.

Short URL: http://www.albanianeconomy.com/news/?p=1313

Posted by editor on Dec 21 2008. Filed under Banking & Finance, Business, Economy, Invest-Inform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry