The first foreign-funded enterprise at the reservoir area of the gigantic Three Gorges Project, Xinfu Foodstuffs Co., has gone into official operation Wednesday.

The Chongqing-based firm, owned by a company in Singapore, produces protein fodder and edible cooking oil. The first phase, costing 36 million US dollars, has a production line with a daily capacity of 600 tons of salad oil.

Yang Jiping, the firm's general manager, said the operation of the production line provides jobs for 500 migrants and generates an output value of 2.5 billion yuan (about 300 million US dollars) annually.

This is the largest bean processing company in western China as well as the first Singapore-funded industrial firm in western China.

the construction of the Three Gorges Project, the largest water control project in the world, started in 1993 and will finish by 2009. The water level of the reservoir will raise by four steps from 82.28 meters to 135 meters, 156 meters and finally to 175 meters when many local residents and enterprises see their houses and factory buildings submerged by rising water.

Source: Xinhua