Recent Progresses

The ten-year construction of the TGP has been carried out smoothly and the construction quality has well satisfied the design requirement.

By March 25, 2003, the main civil work quantities accomplished are:earth-rock excavation 1,341.4 million m³ ( amounting to 99.34% of the total work quantities);earth-rock backfill 33.93 million m³ (amounting to 78.13% of the total work quantities); concrete palcement 204.9 million m³ (amounting to 70.91 % of the total work quantities).

In the past ten years,the funds needed has been well put in place and the project construction has progressed smoothly.The project construction has been carries out according to the approved general schedule and a little bit ahead of time.The investment for the project has so far been controlled within the approved budgets,of which 41.55 RMB billion yuan on the main structure, RMB 37.67 billion yuan in the reservior resettlement and RMB 11.8 billion yuan in interest for loans and price escalation have been completed .

According to the investigation,all in total 1.13 million people need to be relocated, 36.88 million m² housing need to be rebuilt and 1,599 factories and enterprises need to be demolished and rebuilt.By the end of December,2002, the moving of 709.2 thousand migrants has been completed and 25.38 million m² housing of various kinds has been rebuilt, 1,097 factories and enterprises have been moved and rebuilt. Howerver,the current status of the project's resettlement has completely met the demands of the approved general schedule.

Since the beginning of the construction of the TGP, the tasks of the 1st stage construction have been finished,including excavation of the open diversion channel,building of the temporary shiplock and the river closure of the main channel.In the 2nd stage construction,the main tasks are the concrete placement of the dam and the permanence shiplock,the metal work and the installation of the generating units.Up to now, the concrete placement of the dam sections has reached elevation of 120 m. The excavation work for the lock chambers of the permanence shiplocks has been finished.In Augest of 2003, the first group of the generating units will be put into operation and the permanence shiplock will also be put into use.

However,painstaking efforts should still be made, the project erectors are fully implementing the policy of "Fine design,Careful construction and Elaborate Organization", and above quota the whole project are to be accomplished on time.

Latest

The Three Gorges reservoir officially began to store water on June 1,2003 as the sluice gate started to close at 00:00 that day.It is a major step towards completion of the world's largest hydroelectric project.

On June 16,2003, the third trial navigation of Three Gorges Project was proved to be successfu as ships passed through the permanence shiplock without hindrance .It marked the start of a 12 month-long trial navigation for the shiplock.