Another 200,000 people bid farewell to a life without electricity in the rural areas of southwest China's Yunnan Province in 2007, local authorities said on Friday.

More than 49,000 rural households were given access to electricity last year, 4,000 more than the pre-set target, said a spokesman with the Yunnan Power Grid Corporation.

More than 1.78 million people in about 427,000 households are still without electricity.

The provincial government plans to invest heavily to help 220,000 households gain access to electricity during the 2006-2010 period.

(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2008)