China is to build a large-scale hospital in the Blue Nile State in southeastern Sudan, a local official announced on Monday.

Ali Mohammed Idriss, the minister of health in the state government, told reporters that the construction of the hospital, which is to occupy an area of 20,000 square meters and will have nearly 100 beds, would start at the beginning of next year and would last for about one year.

He said that the hospital would be named "the Hospital of the Chinese Sudanese Friendship."

"This is a precious present from China to the local people in the Blue Nile State, and we express our extreme thanks and appreciation for the Chinese government's donation," the Sudanese official said.

At a ceremony held in the Sudanese Federal Ministry of Health in Khartoum, a document on the construction of the hospital was signed by Idriss and Huang Jin, the director of the Overseas Project Department of the China Urban Construction Design and Research Institute.

Chinese Ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen and Undersecretary of the Sudanese Federal Ministry of Health Kamal Abdu al-Gadir attended the signing ceremony.

(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2008)