Hanoi has decided to give Japan contracts to build two nuclear reactors, a Japanese report said, while Russia is expected to sign a deal already announced for Vietnam's first nuclear energy plant.
The communist country wants to build eight nuclear plants in the next two decades. Initial government plans call for four reactors, with a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts and at least one of them operational from 2020.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is expected to convey the Communist Party leadership's decision when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Sunday for bilateral talks in Hanoi, Japan's Kyodo news agency said Friday.
At their meeting the leaders of Japan and Vietnam were expected to discuss early signing of a nuclear energy pact, on which the two governments have already reached basic agreement, a Japanese official said last week.
Kan is visiting the Vietnamese capital for meetings of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations and a wider East Asia Summit (EAS) on Saturday.
Separately, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who arrived in Hanoi Saturday, will sign a deal for the construction of Vietnam's first nuclear power plant as ties continue to revive with the Soviet-era ally, an aide said Friday.
The deal, worth several billion euros, will form part of an "extensive raft of bilateral agreements", Medvedev's top foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko said.
The United States is also in nuclear talks with Vietnam.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
