- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Iran 2007 budget envisions $1.3 billion on new NPP construction

Subscribe
TEHRAN, February 26 (RIA Novosti) - Iran's 2007 budget starting March 21 envisions $1.3 billion on construction of new nuclear power plants, Iranian media reported Monday.

Tehran earlier said Iran plans to use nuclear power to meet 10% of its energy needs in the next 25 years.

Media said a parliamentary commission on draft budget coordination has agreed with the government's proposal to allocate the sum.

"Ten percent of the funds allocated will go to train nuclear sector experts at Iran's various higher educational establishments," a commission spokesman told journalists.

In early 2005, Iran's parliament ratified a bill on NPP construction with a total power of 20,000 megawatts in the country.

In December 2005, the Islamic Republic's government decided to start building a 360-MW NPP in the province of Khuzestan, with Tehran planning to complete construction in seven years.

Russian specialists are completing the construction of Iran's first NPP in the southern city of Bushehr, a project worth $1 billion on a contract signed in 1995, but Iran has an outstanding debt for the construction services, so the construction could take longer than previously expected.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in December imposing sanctions on Iran.

Russia, a key economic partner of Iran, has consistently supported the Islamic Republic's right to nuclear power under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has resisted the imposition of harsh sanctions.

The Bushehr facility, scheduled to be commissioned in the second half of 2007, after the original date at the end of 2006 was delayed, has been a source of international dispute, with the United States and other Western countries, raising concerns that Iran could use the project as part of a covert weapons program.

Iran has consistently denied that its nuclear program has military goals.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала