Argentina and China on Tuesday signed a contract for the construction of the Atucha III nuclear power plant with Chinese financing, Axel Kicillof, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, said on Tuesday.
“This is a historic day for the province (of Bue-nos Aires), we participated in the signing of a con-tract between Nucleoelectrica Argentina S.A and China National Nuclear Corporation for the con-struction of Atucha III, the fourth nuclear power plant in the country and the third in the province,” Kicillof tweeted. According to the media outlet EconoJournal, the contract is estimated at $8.3 billion, expected to be provided by a consortium of Chinese banks.
The deal was signed ahead of visits of Argentine President Alberto Fernandez to China and Russia later this week. According to Fernandez, Russia and Argentina may sign some commercial agreements during his visit.
In addition, last week the Latin American nation reached an agreement with the International Mone-tary Fund on a refinancing of its debt, under which Argentina is allowed to attract external investments.
Russia and Argentina have an intergovernmen-tal agreement on cooperation on the peaceful atom, particularly in such areas as fundamental and ap-plied research, design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of nuclear power plants and re-search nuclear reactors, including water desalination plants, nuclear fuel cycle for nuclear power plants and research reactors.
In addition, in 2020 Russia expressed interest in participating in bidding on the construction of a dry storage for spent nuclear fuel at the Atucha-2 nu-clear power plant in Argentina.—APP
