Hanoi, April 3:

State-run Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) will offer shares in four power plants to raise capital for projects to meet the booming economy’s rising energy demand, an official said.

The announcement came as construction starts on a plant in northeastern Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province and on a hydro-power project just across the Lao border, both aimed at meeting power demand soaring at up to 15 per cent a year.

“EVN will offer shares in four power plants in late May,” said Dang Phan Tuong of the state company’s privatisation committee, adding that the four plants are worth a total of nearly $550 million.

EVN would retain majority stakes in the plants at Uong Bi in northern Quang Ninh province, Ninh Binh in the northern province of the same name, Thac Mo in central Binh Phuoc province and Ba Ria in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

Meanwhile, EVN is starting projects this week in northern Vietnam and neighbouring Laos. Vietnam’s $593 million Quang Ninh thermo-electric plant, with an eventual capacity of 1,200 megawatts, will be the largest in the country’s north when it goes online in late 2008, Tuong said.

Deputy prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the ground-breaking ceremony yesterday of the project contracted to China’s Shanghai Electric Group.