French special envoy in S. Africa for nuclear energy talks

French special envoy on nuclear energy, Pascal Colombani arrived in South Africa on Friday in an apparent bid to boost French efforts to participate in the roll out of South Africa's nuclear program.

Colombani is expected to meet with senior officials of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and representatives from the government, the state-run power utility Eskom and the South Africa Nuclear Cooperation during his two-day visit.

"My purpose is to speed up French and South Africa cooperation and forge a long-term strategic partnership in nuclear energy," Colombani told Xinhua upon arrival.

He added that his visit was the first after he was appointed a special envoy for nuclear partnership with South Africa.

Colombani noted that the two countries share the same purpose of developing nuclear programs.

Colombani pledged to assist South Africa in nuclear technology, training and safety in an attempt to speed up the nuclear cooperation between the two countries.

The United States, Russian, France and several other countries are positioning themselves for winning the South African bid for building nuclear plants which were estimated at one trillion rand (about 70 billion US dollars).

Russia has been widely considered as a frontrunner for the bid.

South Africa is suffering from a severe shortage of power supply as it strives to develop nuclear energy to meet the growing demand for energy.

The country has worked out a nuclear program that aims to add nine 600MW of capacity to the national grid and have the first reactor unit connected in 2023.

In April this year, South Africa sent 50 trainees to China for training in nuclear power plant operations in preparation for the imminent procurement of the nuclear-build program.

"The National Development Plan enjoins us to do thorough investigations on various aspects of the nuclear power generation program before a procurement decision is taken," the Department of said.

"As such, part of our recent pre-procurement work includes the conclusion of engagements with various vendor countries such as the United States of America, South Korea, Russia, Canada, France, Japan and China. These are the countries that have expressed interest in the roll-out of South Africa's nuclear program," the department said in a statement on its website. Enditem