Chinese state power group State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) has submitted a proposal to buy the stake of the Centrais Energéticas de Minas Gerais (Cemig) group in the Santo António hydroelectric project, according to a statement issued on Tuesday.

The proposal was put forward by State Power Investment Overseas Co., a foreign investment subsidiary of the Chinese group, and the Cemig group gave no further details.

The Santo António hydroelectric project is located on the Madeira River, in Porto Velho, in the Brazilian state of Rondônia and has an installed capacity of 3,568 megawatts.

Centrais Energéticas de Minas Gerais, one of the main electric power concessionaires in Brazil, headquartered in the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, has recently been selling assets to reduce its liabilities.

Cemig was founded in 1952 by the governor of Minas Gerais, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, and is currently the largest integrated power sector company in South America, by number of customers, and the largest in Latin America, by network kilometres and equipment and facilities.

The group controls more than 180 companies and participates in 17 consortiums. It is a publicly traded company with 117,000 shareholders in 44 countries and its shares are listed on the São Paulo Stock Exchange, on the New York Stock Exchange and the Madrid Stock Exchange.