“The current leadership of Vietnam is demonstrating a desire to return to the topic of nuclear power industry in general. And when this decision is made, negotiations will automatically resume,” Likhachev said.
He said that in 2016-2018, Vietnam decided “not to use nuclear energy in the power balance at all,” although nuclear technologies remained and cooperation with Russia continued on the nuclear technology center project.
“We had a high degree of readiness for the Ninh Thuan-1 project, the same bestseller that we are now implementing in neighboring countries, including China and Bangladesh... But the decision was made at the level of leading government bodies not to develop nuclear energy. That is why this project was halted, and all talks were halted," Likhachev said.
For the Ninh Thuan-1 NPP, Rosatom once proposed a project based on high-power power units with advanced Russian VVER-1200 reactor units. Now Rosatom offers its foreign partners nuclear power plants not only of large, but also of low power, both in land-based and floating versions.