Three Gorges Dam goes way over budget

Source: Shanghai Daily  |   2009-9-15  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

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THE Three Gorges Dam project cost 254.2 billion yuan (US$37.23 billion), Xinhua news agency said yesterday, several times the original estimate.

When the project was approved in 1992, then-Vice Premier Zou Jiahua told the National People's Congress it would cost 57 billion yuan.

But the infrastructure, including a dam, a giant lock and 26 power generators, had a final price tag of 184.9 billion yuan, Xinhua quoted a senior government official overseeing the project as saying.

Finding new homes for people whose towns and villages were flooded cost an additional 69.3 billion yuan, added Lu Chun, deputy head of the office of the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee.

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