China Datang Corporation, the country's major power generator, issued two billion yuan (US$24.69 million) worth of corporate bonds Thursday to raise funds in the domestic market.

 

The company issued 2005 Datang corporate bonds last year, worth three billion yuan (US$37.04 million).

 

The 2006 Datang corporate bonds, rated as AAA and guaranteed by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's biggest state bank assets-wise, bear an annual interest rate of 4.2 percent in face value within a term of 20 years.

 

The issuance will be undertaken by the China International Capital Corporation Limited.

 

"Datang is the first domestic company to issue such long-term corporate bonds in three years," said Yang Qing, deputy general manager of China Datang Corporation.

 

The two billion yuan raised through the bonds will be invested in building the power supply infrastructure, including the technological reconstruction of a thermo-electric power plant, in western Shaanxi province, Yang said.

 

These infrastructure projects, nine in all, will help to relieve power supply pressure in related regions, he added.

 

China Datang Corporation, one of the five major power generators in the country, generated more than 200 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity with an installed capacity of 40 billion kilowatts in 2005, with its net profit up about 3.0 percent year on year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2006)