Samsung Signs Deal to Build $340 Million Bangladesh Power Plant

Samsung C&T Corp. (000830), the construction and trading arm of South Korea’s Samsung Group, signed an accord with Electricity Generation Co. of Bangladesh and Spain’s Isolux Ingenieria SA to build a power plant in the South Asian nation.

The 335-megawatt project will be built in Siddhirganj, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the capital, Dhaka, the state-owned Bangladesh utility said in a statement today.

Bangladesh is spending $10 billion over a decade to increase generation capacity in a nation where more than half of the 166 million people don’t have access to electricity. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed is seeking to boost spending on power plants, roads and ports and lure foreign investors to the $106 billion economy.

The World Bank will provide $196 million of the project’s estimated cost of $340 million, Mehrin Ahmed Mahbub, communications officer at the lender’s Bangladesh office, said by telephone from Dhaka.

The power plant is expected to start in December 2014, according to the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Arun Devnath in Dhaka at adevnath@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net