YANGON - Myanmar and China have agreed to build two major hydro-power dams in northeast Kachin State, which will have a combined capacity of 5,600 megawatts, state media has reported.

A 2,000-megawatt hydro-power plant will be built on the Maykha River, which flows into the Ayeyawady River in northeast Kachin State near the Chinese border, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

Another dam built at the confluence of the Maykha and the Ayeyawady, the longest river in Myanmar, will generate 3,600-megawatts of electricity, the paper said.

The projects will be jointly carried out by Myanmar's hydro-power department and China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), and follows earlier news of a 600-megawatt dam on the central Shweli River.

Officials from Myanmar and CPT signed the agreement for the two Kachin dams on Thursday in Myanmar's new administrative capital Naypyidaw.

The New Light of Myanmar did not say whether the power generated from the dams would supply the remote Kachin region or neighbouring China.

Myanmar's government has recently signed a slate of agreements with neighbouring China and Thailand to build hydro-electric dams that would generate energy to power their own growing economies.

The biggest of the projects is a six-billion-dollar deal with Thailand signed in April to build a dam on the Salween River, the longest undammed river in Southeast Asia.

The dam would be the biggest in Myanmar with a 7,000-megawatt capacity, but it has raised the ire of environmental groups and rights activists who fear it will destroy habitats and uproot villages.