China Yangtze Power Co(stock code:600900), operator of the world's biggest hydropower project, yesterday said first-half profit jumped 72 percent after the company sold shares in a bank and increased electricity output.

Net income surged to 2.25 billion yuan (US$297 million), or 0.268 yuan a share, from 1.31 billion yuan, or 0.16 yuan, a year earlier, Yangtze Power said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Sales rose 12 percent to 3.4 billion yuan. Yangtze Power gained HK$1.6 billion (US$205 million) from the sale of 400 million shares in China Construction Bank Corp in April. Power output, mostly from the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, climbed 11 percent to 17.2 billion kilowatt-hours in the first six months, the Beijing-based utility said earlier. Parent company China Three Gorges Corp is developing the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, Asia's longest river. Yangtze Power was appointed by the parent as operator of all the project's turbines and has priority to buy the dam's generating units, Bloomberg News reported.