Agreement to build NPP in Vietnam by Russia may be signed by yearend - State Duma committee head

HANOI. Sept 29 (Interfax) - State Duma Energy Committee Chairman Nikolai Shulginov has announced plans to sign an intergovernmental agreement by the end of the year on Russia's construction of a nuclear power plant in Vietnam.

"We hope that such an intergovernmental agreement will be signed by the end of the year," Shulginov told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the Commission on Interparliamentary Cooperation between the State Duma and the Vietnamese National Assembly on Sunday.

He noted that the nuclear power plant construction project was one of the main matters discussed at the commission meeting.

"One of the main areas that my colleagues and I emphasized is that we have finally returned to the idea that the nuclear power plant construction project needs to be revived and continued," Shulginov said.

"Russia has extensive experience not only in the construction but also in regulating nuclear power unit safety issues," he said.

"Russia has already established a legal framework and continues to improve it based on international standards. We proposed a more frequent and comprehensive exchange on this subject to help the Vietnamese side draw up relevant documents," Shulginov added.

As previously reported, Rosatom stood ready to offer Vietnam the construction of two VVER-1200 reactor units. As head of the Russian state corporation Alexei Likhachev said earlier, the country had decided to return to the Ninh Thuan-1 NPP project, which it suspended in 2016.

Shulginov is a member of the State Duma delegation, led by speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodin, on an official visit to Vietnam.