The Vietnamese government has tasked the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) to build a 750-MW power plant with 650 million U.S. dollars in southern Dong Nai province, local newspaper People reported on Wednesday.

When inspecting the implementation of some major industry projects in the central and southern regions on Monday and Tuesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked the PetroVietnam to build the Nhon Trach 2 gas-fired power plant in 2007 and complete the construction in 2011. He also asked the company to intensify gas exploitation to feed the new facility and the Nhon Trach 1 power plant.

Construction of the Nhon Trach 1 thermoelectric plant with a capacity of 450 MW and investment of 420 million dollars started in March. It is scheduled to become fully operational in March 2009.

Vietnam's electricity sector should post an annual growth of some 20 percent so as to enable an annual economic growth of 8-9 percent in a sustainable manner, the prime minister said.

Vietnam's electricity demand is estimated to annually grow 10- 15 percent in the 2007-2010 period. Therefore, the country needs 20 billion dollars from now to 2010 to implement electricity production, transmission and distribution projects, according to the state-owned Electricity of Vietnam, the country's biggest power producer and sole distributor.