Medvedev to sign nuclear power deal in Vietnam

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign agreements to help build Vietnam’s first nuclear power plant and a hydroelectric power station during a visit to the Soviet-era ally starting on Saturday, Kremlin sources said.

Bolstering economic cooperation has been Russia’s main focus in recent years in relations with Vietnam, site of a Cold War showdown with the United States and once the home of the Soviet Union’s biggest naval base abroad.

Trade between Russia and Vietnam increased to $1.56 billion (973 million pounds) last year from $1.4 billion a year ago and was up another 16.6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2010, according to Russian government figures.

Medvedev’s visit will start with meetings with the leaders of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Hanoi, the first Russian-ASEAN summit since the inaugural one in 2005.

The bilateral agenda with Vietnam included the signing of an agreement to launch the construction of a nuclear power plant, and Russia might loan money to help build it, a Kremlin source told reporters on Thursday.

Russia and Vietnam agreed to cooperate on Vietnam’s first nuclear power plant in a memorandum of understanding signed after talks between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Vietnamese counterpart last December.

Russia has been actively pursuing deals to build nuclear power plants abroad. It recently completed the reactor at Iran’s first nuclear power plant and signed a deal to build a powerful two-reactor station in Venezuela earlier this month.

Russia’s Rushydro company and Vietnam’s state-owned oil group Petrovietnam would sign an agreement to build a hydroelectric power station, the Kremlin source said.

The power station on the Da river will be upstream from another one already being built by Rushydro.

The Kremlin source both countries would also sign a memorandum to help set up the acquisition of British oil group BP’s assets in Vietnam by Russian oil firm TNK-BP, which is half owned by BP.

TNK-BP said earlier this month it would acquire BP’s production and pipeline assets in Vietnam and Venezuela for $1.8 billion. – Reuters

Tags: Vietnam energy, Vietnam nuclear power project