The plant, near the town of Iskenderun close to the Syrian border, was built by the German-Turkish consortium STEAG AG/ISKEN and will produce nine billion kilowatts/hour per year, meeting seven percent of Turkey's electricity needs.

"This is the biggest German investment in Turkey and it shows that Turkey is an attractive country for investments," the German leader told a ceremony to mark the opening of the plant, Anatolia news agency reported.

Schroeder offered German help in modernizing the energy sector in Turkey which largely depends on imports to meets its energy needs.

"German firms are ready for technology transfer," he added.

Erdogan for his part said Turkey needed to develop more of its own resources to help meet its energy demand.

"If we do not utilize resources in our country, our dependence on abroad may go up to 78 percent by 2020. Our priority is to ensure safe energy supply and diversify energy sources," he added.

The power plant in Iskenderun, which will provide employment for 750 people, will operate on imported coal.

Officials say the plant has been fitted with high-technology filter systems to ensure environmental protection, but some 80 activists from the environmental group Greenpeace and local NGOs held a sit-in outside the plant, arguing that environmentally-friendly solar energy should be used instead of coal, a Greenpeace spokesman said.

Twenty-two protesters, including one German and one Austrian environmentalist, were taken into custody, he added.

Schroeder left Turkey for Malta after the ceremony in Iskenderun, on the second day of his visit here.

Germany, home to 2.5 million people of Turkish origin, the largest such community in western Europe, is Turkey's largest trading partner in the EU, with bilateral trade in 2002 at 14.2 billion euros (18 billion dollars at today's rates).

TERRA.WIRE