Georgia, Tbilisi, April 21/Trend, N.Kirtskhalia
The Government of Georgia begins to build the Hudoni hydropower plant, Prime Minister Nika Gilauri reported on Thursday.
He said negotiations over construction of the hydropower plant had been conducted with India's Continental Energy. "This company carried out technical analysis to identify whether construction of the Hudoni hydropower plant is expedient. This procedure ended several days ago, and the company concluded that construction of the hydropower plant is a profitable venture", Gilauri said.
The Prime Minister noted that the Indian company agreed to build the Hudoni hydropower plant though it "realizes all difficulties". "Of course, this concerns basically attraction of investments", he said.
Gilauri stressed that the Hudoni hydropower plant will have the production capacity of 650 megawatts of electricity that will require around $1 billion in investments.
In his turn, Energy and Sustainable Development Minister of Georgia Alexander Khetaguri said the contract for construction of the hydropower plant will be concluded in the near days. "Preliminary works will be done this summer, and the construction works will begin next year", he said.
Construction of the Hudoni hydropower plant had begun yet in the Soviet era, in 1985 but the Government of independent Georgia spoke against the project for ecological reasons and suspended it.