Russia to continue building nuclear power plants in China?

Russia stands a good chance of continuing the construction of new nuclear power units in China, Russian Minister for the Nuclear Power Industry Alexander Rumyantsev said to journalists on Friday.

It was his comment to Beijing's declaration of intent to open a tender for the building of nuclear power plants. "We hope we'll start up in due time the first and second units of the Tianwan facility and then go on", Rumyantsev explained.

Russia has recently presented its reactors in China, he said. They were different VVER /water-moderated/ reactors of 640 to 1,500 megawatts. "The presentation marked our yet unfinished development, a new VVER reactor of 1,500 megawatts", he said.

According to media reports, earlier China said that invitations to the tender would be sent to American, French and Russian companies before the end of December.