OREANDA-NEWS. May 14, 2009. During a meeting in Dhaka representatives of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission signed a memorandum of mutual understanding concerning cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy.

In May 2009 Prime Minister of Bangladesh Hasina Wajed approved the draft of the memorandum.

This document is supposed to lay foundations for mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The key element of Bangladesh’s nuclear program is the construction of its first nuclear power plant.

In late Mar 2009 a Russian delegation visited Dhaka and presented the capacities of Russia’s nuclear industry. The local officials liked what they saw. After the meeting the Deputy Minister of Science of Bangladesh said that they would shortly draft a Russian-Bangladeshi inter-governmental agreement for cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy.

In order to avoid energy crisis, Bangladesh is planning to build two reactors in Ruppur. The Russian and Bangladeshi authorities will jointly consider the expediency of this project.

The Bangladeshi authorities began considering such a possibility as long ago as 1961, when Bangladesh was not yet independent, and, consequently, allocated a necessary site in Ruppur. In 1978 the government confirmed the expediency of the construction of an NPP in the country. In 2002 the IAEA helped the Bangladeshi authorities to assess the safety of the site.

The new authorities of Bangladesh are going to launch the country’s first NPP in 2017. They have already studied the nuclear power capacities of China, South Korea and France.

The key problem is financing. Experts say that the Ruppur project may need as much as USD 1.5bln-USD 2bln. As one of the possible scenarios the Bangladeshi authorities are considering the possibility of borrowing money from the World Bank or other international financial organizations.