Industry Minister: Serbia Eager for Bulgarian Belene NPP

The site of NPP Belene in Northern Bulgaria. The project started as early as 1981, but since then little has been done. Bulgaria is now loking for a new investor and funds to complete the project. Photo by BGNES.

Serbian Minister of Industry Petar Skundric told the Tanjug agency that participating in the construction of the future Belene NPP in Bulgaria will prove good for Serbia.

He specified that the Belene NPP project is of “regional significance” and said that opportunities for Serbia to receive good loans from abroad will help its participation.

Skunric was referring to recent interest expressed by the China Development Bank to finance Serbia's participation in the project.

He specified that if Serbia is going to participate with only a few percent in Belene, then financing will come from Serbian power company Elektroprivreda Srbije, but if the investments reaches 25% and more, the country will have to rely on Chinese capital.

Skundric added to that that there are also opportunities for loans from Russia, which is anyhow strongly interested in the project too.

The Serbian minister said that his country can benefit from the power capacity of the future NPP, which is going to provide “clean and cheap” energy to the country, and will in additional provide an opportunity to train Serbia's own nuclear engineers.

He nevertheless added that the final decision to participate or not will depend on the energy balance and the value of the capital in the project. Monday Serbian newspaper Vecherne Novoste quoted a source from the Serbian government saying that the decision will be coming end of September of beginning of October.

In other news, Tanjug quoted representatives of opposition Serbian Progressive Party, who claimed that building power capacities in another country is not good for Serbia's own power rescources, that it will only induce more state spending, and that it is intended in order to do service to Serbian mafia.

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