Japan has dropped out of plans to build a major nuclear power plant in Vietnam because the time frame is too tight, Japanese ambassador Naoki Ito said, potentially complicating Vietnam’s long-term strategy to avoid new power shortages.
Vietnam, home to large manufacturing operations for multinationals including Samsung and Apple, has faced major power blackouts as demand from its huge industrial sector and expanding middle class often outpaces supplies, strained by increasingly frequent extreme weather, such as droughts and typhoons.
“The Japanese side is not in a position to implement the Ninh Thuan 2 project,” the ambassador to Vietnam said, referring to a plant with a planned capacity of 2 to 3.2 gigawatts.
Ninh Thuan 2 is scheduled to come online by 2035 alongside Ninh Thuan 1, a plant with the same capacity, according to the government’s roadmap.
The announcement comes amid strains in usually close ties between Hanoi and Tokyo, including from a planned ban on petrol motorbikes in central Hanoi that has angered market-dominating Honda.
A letter about the issue from Japan’s embassy to Vietnamese authorities in September has still not been formally answered, Ito said, though he said that Vietnamese authorities might organise further consultations on the matter.
Work on both nuclear plants in central Vietnam started in the early 2010s but was halted in 2016 when Hanoi suspended its nuclear power programme over safety and budget concerns. Russia had been awarded the Ninh Thuan 1 project, and Japan the second plant.
After it resumed its nuclear energy programme last year, Vietnam asked Japan and Russia to implement the projects, Ito said, but after meetings with Vietnamese officials, Japan decided in November that it would pull out as the deadline for completion was too close. — Reuters
