New | Chinese nuclear firms urged to boost presence overseas

China will push its big nuclear firms to improve their competitiveness and boost their presence overseas as it bids to become one of the world's dominant nuclear energy powers, Premier Li Keqiang said.

"To continue the struggle to become a strong nuclear energy power, China must comprehensively raise the industry's competitive advantages, promote nuclear power equipment overseas, and ensure the industry is absolutely safe," Xinhua quoted Li as saying at a ceremony on Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the launch of the country's civilian nuclear power programme.

China has 22 reactors in operation and an additional 26 under construction. It aims to raise total capacity to 58 GW by the end of 2020, up from 20 GW now, but it needs to go much further to meet its low-carbon energy targets.

"Maybe we are now looking at 200 GW by 2030, making it the leading nuclear country by capacity, but there is still potential for nuclear to take an even greater share," Agneta Rising, the director general of the World Nuclear Association, said at a conference in Beijing on Thursday.

China hopes its domestic reactor programme will create opportunities abroad, and the country's two biggest state nuclear companies, China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) and China General Nuclear Corp (CGN), have agreed to invest in Britain's Hinkley Point nuclear project.

Wang Zhongtang, the chief engineer at State Nuclear Power Technology Corp, said China was also well on its way to securing projects in Turkey and South Africa.