China has said it will continue talks with Myanmar over the suspended Myitsone dam, after comments by Construction Minister U Win Khaing that big hydropower projects were no longer a priority, reports said.
Big hydropower projects could be “good for the future”, Win Khaing told Reuters in an interview published on November 7.
The minister, who was given responsibility for the Electricity and Energy portfolio in August, told Reuters he favoured using imported liquefied natural gas and small hydropower projects to help ease power shortages.
Asked about Win Khaing’s comments on November 8, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Ms Hua Chunying, said the Myitsone dam was a commercial project agreed by the two sides and all review and approval procedures had been completed.
“We will continue to stay in communication with Myanmar and handle the difficulties in the cooperation project in a proactive and proper manner, so that the relevant cooperation will continue with sound and steady development to deliver greater benefits to the two peoples,” Hua said.
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“We always stay committed to deepening the economic and trade cooperation with Myanmar on the basis of mutual benefit and win-win outcomes,” she said.
Myanmar and China have been discussing the future of the US$3.6 billion Myitsone project since President U Thein Sein’s surprise decision in September 2011 to suspend work for his term in office.
The decision followed escalating protests against the Chinese project to build the dam where the Malikha and N’Mai Kha rivers join to form the Ayeyarwady River, about 42 kilometres upstream from Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital.
The proposed dam was to have sent most of the power it produced to Yunnan Province in neighbouring China, which Win Khaing noted now has an over-supply of electricity.
“Sometimes things change. Now China is overflowing with energy they don’t need power right now,” the minister told Reuters. “Actually they have a surplus of power right now, especially from hydropower. What was very, very important 10 years ago has different perspectives right now,” he said.
Win Khaing said a government panel formed in August 2016 was still reviewing the dam, Reuters reported.
