China Gezhouba Group Company (CGGC) will integrate into China andPakistan’s overall cooperation and contribute more to Pakistan’s economicand social development, said Chen Xiaohua, President of CGGC.

Chen made the remarks when meeting with Pakistani Ambassador to China Moinul Haque in Wuhan, according to report published by China Economic Net(CEN).

Haque noted that a number of key projects invested and constructed by CGGChave played an important role in boosting Pakistan’s economic growth andcreating jobs.

He expected CGGC to continue engaging in the construction of theChina-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and write a new chapter forPak-China friendship.

CGGC first entered Pakistan in 2003 and started Neelum Jhelum HydropowerProject, its first hydropower project in 2008, according to Lyu Xiufeng,General Manager of Pakistan Branch of CGGC.

Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project is called as Pakistan’s Three Gorgesproject (China’s massive multi-functional water control facility on theYangtze River, also the world’s largest hydroelectric power project).

It took one decade for CGGC to complete this mega project because of its ahigh difficulty level of construction with 90 percent of the constructionlying underground in high mountainous areas.

During 2008-2018, workers of CGGC had overcome one obstacle after another,by world-class technology, excellent capability and unremitting efforts.

To ensure Neelum-Jhelum project’s security, CGGC chose the scheme of lowdam and long diversion tunnel when designing the dam type. The length ofits diversion tunnel is 68 kilometers, rare in the world.

The hardest part, about 17 km, to construct, is beneath a mountain. By theconventional drilling and blasting method, it would face huge challengesand its construction process would also prolong.

To solve the world-class technological problem of constructing this superlong diversion tunnel, CGGC decided to use the state-of-the-art tunnelboring machine (TBM) in Pakistan for the first time.

Many famous experts in rock and soil mechanics and geologists once saidthat there had been no successful precedent of TBM tunneling in theHimalayas range, the youngest and most geologically active region in theworld.

Anyone who could successfully use TBM in the Himalayas would make historyin tunnel construction.

In 2012, Pakistan’s first TBM came to the site of the Neelum-Jhelumhydroelectric project.