Vietnam sees power demand slowing with economy

Vietnam, which for years has been suffering chronic power shortages, for the first time has more electricity than it needs as demand has slowed, a government official said.

"At present we have redundant power supply, demand is expected to grow only 6-7 percent while generation capacity would rise 14-15 percent," Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Bui Xuan Khu said in a report Friday.

Khu said the global economic downturn, especially in Japan, the US and Europe, Vietnam's key trading partners, has hurt export manufacturers.

Last year power demand, led by industry, jumped around 16 percent while supply only rose 12 percent, forcing the government to import electricity from China and rotate power outages in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Soaring demand also led top utility Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) to plan to invest $3 billion a year to build 33,200 MW of new generation capacity by 2015.

So far there has not been any delay in EVN power projects.

 Reuters

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