The Guiana hydropower project on the Senegal River in West Africa, which was undertaken by Chinese companies as the EPC general contractor, was officially completed in December 2022. Mali's interim Prime Minister Ma ï ga, Senegal's Prime Minister Amadou Ba, Mauritania's Prime Minister Mohamed Bilal, Guinea's interim Prime Minister Bernard Gumu and other regional leaders attended the completion ceremony together, witnessing this important moment. This large hydropower station has a dam height of 19 meters, a total length of 1317 meters, and a storage capacity of 136 million cubic meters. Three axial flow water turbine generators are installed in the plant, with a total installed capacity of 140 megawatts, making it an important clean energy base in West Africa.

The project officially started construction in November 2016, and after more than five years of construction, the gate was closed for water storage in July 2021, and the first unit was connected to the grid for power generation in March 2022. In the process of construction, the Chinese enterprise team overcame the impact of the harsh natural environment and the COVID-19 epidemic, innovated and adopted effective measures such as remote technical guidance and coordination of long-distance transportation of heavy equipment to ensure that the project was carried out on schedule. Especially during the epidemic, the project team solved technical problems through online communication and safely transported hundreds of tons of equipment from ports over a thousand kilometers away to the construction site, demonstrating excellent project execution capabilities.

The biggest feature of the Guyina hydropower station is its operation mode of "one power station supplying three countries". Through the regional power grid, the power station simultaneously delivers clean electricity to Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania, effectively promoting interconnectivity of the West African power grid and advancing regional energy cooperation and win-win development. According to statistics, the project has created thousands of job opportunities for the local area during its construction period, while actively fulfilling social responsibilities. Through donating learning materials, building drinking water facilities, dredging rivers and other public welfare activities, it has effectively improved the local people's livelihood and won high praise from all parties. Keywords: the Belt and Road project news, the Belt and Road news

The successful implementation of this project not only demonstrates China's technological strength in infrastructure construction, but also becomes a model project for promoting regional economic development and improving people's livelihoods in West Africa, injecting new momentum into deepening China Africa cooperation. Editor/Yang Beihua