Vietnam and Russia to study deal expansions

During his official visit to Russia last week, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Russian counterpart Mikhail Mishustin witnessed the signing of an agreement between the two governments on cooperation in constructing a nuclear power plant in the territory of Vietnam.

- Nguyen Dat reports.

The two sides declared that this is an important step in bilateral cooperation in nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and expressed confidence that this will be a new symbolic initiative for the friendship between Vietnam and Russia.

In 2016, Vietnam’s National Assembly cancelled construction of the Ninh Thuan nuclear power plant, whose prefeasibility reports were already completed. The plants were to boast turbines with a total combined capacity of 2,000MW, and Ninh Thuan 1 was set to be built by Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom. This project’s investment was passed by the legislature in 2009, with two plants including Ninh Thuan 1 and 2. Each plant will have two turbines with a total combined capacity of 2,000MW.

While Ninh Thuan 1 was set to be built by Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, Ninh Thuan 2 was aimed to be constructed by International Nuclear Energy Development of Japan Company - a consortium of 13 Japanese companies.

These two plants were set to be owned and operated by state-owned Vietnam Electricity.

According to Vietnam’s government, the reason for the cancellation was that given its limited budget, Vietnam needs to focus its money into building key infrastructure projects of national importance, such as the Long Thanh International Airport, the north-south railway and road, and the national coastal road, which are costing dozens of billions of US dollars for construction.