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New NPS project is economically beneficial to Lithuania-PM

VILNIUS, October 6 (Itar-Tass) — A Visaginas nuclear power station (VNPS), which Lithuania is planning to build in conjunction with Latvia, Estonia, and Poland on a share basis, is a project that is economically beneficial to Lithuania, Lithuanian Premier Andrius Kubilius told the Ziniu Radijas radio in an interview.

"I am convinced of the economic benefit of this project, and the benefit is expected to be rather considerable," Kubilius pointed out. According to the Head of Government, this attitude is also shared by regional partners, who "actively participate in the project at the level of companies, where expected economic results of this undertaking are being estimated". "There is confidence in the competitiveness of both the price of electric power to be generated by the VNPS and the project as a whole," he said.

Kubilius' opinion is that the attitude of Finland is yet another indirect argument in favor of the new NPS. "On Wednesday, Finland announced that it would build yet another NPS," the Cabinet chief said. "Not because nuclear energy is closer to the Finns' hearts. Simply, they are aware of the project's economic benefit".

Lithuania expects to build the VNPS by 2020 together with Latvia, Estonia, and Poland at the site of the Ignalina NPS, which was closed down at the end of 2009. A tentative value of the project, the largest-scale one over the years of Lithuania's independence, is 5,000 million euros. Independent experts' view is that the economic advisability of the project is questionable, considering that Russia and Belarus are also to build their own NPS in the region within the same timeframe.