Le Doan Phac, the director of the international affairs department at the Vietnam Nuclear Energy Institute, said the study had determined three possible locations for the plant in the coastal provinces of Phu Yen and Ninh Thuan.

"We cannot give a precise date when we will formally submit the pre-feasibility study. That depends on the government, but we can say that we expect it to happen this year," he said.

The blueprint envisages that the plant, which will have a capacity of either 2,000 or 4,000 megawatts, will be built with international cooperation.

Phac's comments came as government experts and nuclear power companies from France, Russia, Japan, South Korea and India -- the frontrunners hoping to cash in on Vietnam's nuclear ambitions -- began a four-day meeting in Hanoi.

Experts say the communist nation is not capable of developing nuclear technology on its own, even though it profited during the 1980s from information exchanges with the former Soviet Union.

In February, Russia and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding in which Moscow agreed to help Hanoi build its first nuclear power plant, but experts say the door still remains wide open for its competitors.

"It is very early days. It is still a negotiating process," said one foreign energy specialist, who requested anonymity.

Vietnam's Institute of Technology for Radioactive Materials said last year the country had an estimated 230,000 tonnes of uranium and could run a nuclear power station for at least 24 years.

Development of Vietnam's energy infrastructure is one of the most significant challenges facing the power-hungry Southeast Asian nation, where the World Bank forecasts economic growth will hit 7.0 percent this year.

According to government estimates, the country will experience an electricity shortage of eight billion kilowatts by 2015, increasing to a massive 35 billion to 60 billion kilowatts by 2020.

Despite having a vast network of rivers and significant oil, gas and coal reserves, the government is concerned about their finite nature, and believes the future of its energy production depends on diversification.

Observers also believe that Hanoi's desire to pursue the nuclear power option dovetails with its military-security policy.

"Nuclear power is always tied up with national defence, so it is very difficult to say whether a shortage of energy in 2015 requires developing this option in a country with a lot of capacity in hydro-power and coal," the foreign specialist said.

"But if you look around at Vietnam's neighbours, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, Japan and China upstairs, it is understandable that they are going to think of nuclear power as a long term option. It is a prudent move."

Sceptics, however, say the nuclear programme will come with an exorbitant price tag and is not essential in a country where average per capita income hovers around a paltry 440 dollars a year.

A spokesman for the World Bank in Vietnam said Wednesday the organization would not be involved in financing the nuclear power project.

"We do not finance nuclear projects and have no intention of financing nuclear power," he said.

Critics of Vietnam's nuclear programme also believe the government has been too conservative in its forecasts of when the country's oil and gas reserves will dry up.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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