Special report: Three Gorges Project 

    THREE GORGES DAM SITE, Hubei Province, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The early completion of the Three Gorges Dam is "a natural result and an outcome of innovation," experts said here on Friday.

    The main section of the Three Gorges Dam will be completed at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, ten months ahead of schedule.

    Water conservation experts say the early completion is resultant from great efforts from all the workers.

    Xie Xiufa, senior engineer of the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Committee, said the most important reason for the early completion of the dam is the top quality of the project. No serious quality problems occurred when the project was going on, which brought no delay to the completion of the dam, he explained.

    The extensive adoption of high technology has been another crucial factor of the early completion.

    The schedule of the project was made according to the technological level in 1993, said Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation.

    But more advanced technologies have been used when the project was going on and, in this way, the scheduled time is also shortened, Cao acknowledged.

    He said the corporation has spent more than 100 million yuan (12.5 million U.S. dollars) on scientific and technological innovation and much of the research conferred state level scientific prizes.

    By the end of April, 126 billion yuan (about 15.8 billion U.S. dollars) had been invested in the Three Gorges Dam project. Some experts hold that the fine financial status also ensure the smoothprogress of the project. Enditem