Russia’s state-owned nuclear company will construct VVER reactors, which have total installed capacity of up to 9600GW or as many eight NPP units, for new nuclear power plants in South Africa, as part of the strategic partnership.

Additionally, the agreement enables collaboration in other areas of nuclear power industry such as construction of a Russian-technology based multipurpose research reactor, helping in the development of South-African nuclear infrastructure, education of South African nuclear specialists in Russian universities and other areas.

Rosatom director general Sergey Kirienko said: "ROSATOM sees to create in South Africa a full-scale nuclear cluster of a world leader’s level – from the front-end of nuclear fuel cycle up to engineering and power equipment manufacturing.

"In future this will allow to implement joint nuclear power projects in Africa and third countries.

"But from the very start this cooperation will be guided at providing the conditions for creation of thousands of new jobs and placing of a considerable order to local industrial enterprises worth at least 10 bln. Dollars."

South African Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson, "South Africa today, as never before, is interested in massive development of nuclear power, which is an important driver for the national economy growth.

"I am sure that cooperation with Russia will allow us to implement our ambitious plans for the creation by 2030 of 9,6 GW of new nuclear capacities based on modern and safe technologies."