On October 31, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Vietnamese Prime On November 24, 2009 the National Assembly of Vietnam approved a plan Construction of these nuclear power plants is scheduled to start in (...) [However,] while Japan may have taken a significant first step in dividing up Baku Nishio and Philip White
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued a joint statement stating that the
Vietnamese Government had “decided to choose Japan as the cooperation
partner for building two reactors at the second nuclear power plant
site in Ninh Thuan Province”. The statement also indicated that
negotiations on the substance of a Japan-Viet Nam nuclear cooperation
agreement had been concluded and that the two countries expect to sign
the agreement soon. The full text of the joint statement is on this
page of the web site of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
to build up to four reactors at two sites with an initial budget of
about US$11 billion. It was reported earlier this year that the
Vietnamese Government had chosen Russian technology for the
construction of two reactors at its first nuclear power plant site,
also in Ninh Thuan Province. On October 31, the same day as the Japan-
Viet Nam joint statement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev witnessed
the signing between Russian state nuclear conglomerate Rosatom and the
Vietnamese Government of an estimated US$5.6 billion contract for
construction of the two reactors at the first site.
2014, with operations of the first reactor scheduled to start in 2020.
the spoils of what remains of the alleged nuclear renaissance, there
is still a long way to go before this deal is done.