Minister Vlcek held talks in South Korea on construction of new units at Dukovany in Czechia

Industry and Trade Minister Lukáš Vlček met today in South Korea with KHNP chief Wang Chu-ho. Vlček said they confirmed that construction of two nuclear units at Dukovany would be completed on time and within the set budget. Vlček and Wang will meet again next week in Prague at an event for Czech companies interested in joining the project. Vlček told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) today.

"KHNP chief Wang Chu-ho and I visited the Saeul nuclear power plant in the south of Korea, and at a bilateral meeting we discussed the next steps in the project to complete the Dukovany nuclear power plant," the minister said.

He added that the Korean bid was the highest-quality and best possible.

Vlček has been on a working trip to Asia since last week. He has already visited Vietnam and Japan, with Korea as the final stop. In Vietnam, he held talks with his counterpart Nguyen Hong Dien, representatives of the state-owned utility Vietnam Electricity and the Mong Duong 2 power plant, in which Sev.en Global Investments, part of the Sev.en group owned by businessman Pavel Tykač, holds a majority stake. In Tokyo, Vlček's agenda included signing a memorandum of cooperation and talks with the metropolitan governor, Yuriko Koike.

The government decided last July to build two new nuclear reactors. It chose the bid from Korea's KHNP over that of French company EDF. It had already eliminated another bidder, Westinghouse, from the competition. The contract with KHNP was signed by Elektrárna Dukovany II on 4 June, after the Supreme Administrative Court overturned a preliminary injunction issued by the regional court that had prohibited the signing.

The first unit at Dukovany is expected to be completed in 2036. Construction of new nuclear units in Czechia is expected to be the country's largest contract, with costs for the currently preferred construction of two reactors at Dukovany amounting to 407 billion korunas in current prices.