"We will see which one of them has more potential than the others later, before submitting the selection to the National Assembly for approval in May," said Vuong Huu Tan, director of the Vietnam Nuclear Energy Institute.

"We haven't considered choosing any particular partner or technology for the plant yet," Tan told Dow Jones Newswires.

Leading firms in the industry from the US, Russia, Japan, France, China and South Korea have come to Hanoi to introduce their technology and express their interest in the project, he said.

This week, Westinghouse Electric Co held a conference in Hanoi to introduce its AP-1000 design.

Vietnam's fast-growing economy is creating demand for electricity far in excess of current capacity. The country has total installed power generating capacity of some 15,000 megawatts, but plans to raise capacity to 24,000 megawatts by 2010 and to 82,300 megawatts by 2020.

The government has said it will build two nuclear power plants, each with two 1,000-megawatt reactors, with construction slated to begin in 2013 and power generation commencing by 2020.

The first plant is expected to be located in Ninh Thuan province, 350 kilometres north of HCM City.

Dow Jones - February 23, 2009