The event was attended by Mahmudul Hasan, Acting Chairman of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Mohammad Shawkat Akbar, Director of Rooppur NPP Project, Abul Basher Md. Zahurul Islam, Director of the Nuclear Information Center in Dhaka, Philip Kosov, Rosatom’s representative in Bangladesh, Sergei Sadovnikov, ASE representative in Bangladesh, and other government and corporate officials involved in the construction of the first nuclear power station in Bangladesh.
“Rosatom has extensive competencies and expertise to assist Bangladesh in implementing its ambitious national nuclear program and developing the hi-tech industry that will stimulate social and economic growth in the country. We realize that future of the nuclear industry is in the hands of present-day children. The generation now going to school will grow up and will be willing tomorrow to become nuclear station operators or even engineers,” Maxim Yelchischev, Vice President of NIAEP (an ASE subsidiary) for the Bangladeshi project, said in his welcoming speech.
He hoped that cooperation between Russia and Bangladesh, including nuclear power projects, will be continued. “A solid foundation for the nuclear cooperation has been laid by the agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy signed in 2011 between our countries. Much work has been done for the last five years to provide Bangladesh with a safe and reliable source of power. Now we are set to start the construction of the first nuclear power plant in the country,” he added.
“Bangladesh expects Rooppur NPP Unit 1 to generate the first gigawatt of electric power by 2021. I am sure it will open brilliant technological prospects for Bangladesh, create tens of thousands of new jobs and give an opportunity to local companies to take part in the project”, said Mahmudul Hasan, Acting Chairman of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission.
In November 2011, Moscow and Dhaka signed a framework agreement for the construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant. The nuclear station named Rooppur will be built on the eastern bank of the Ganges River in Pabna District, 160 km north-west of Dhaka. The groundbreaking ceremony for Rooppur NPP took place in autumn of 2013. In late December 2015, Rosatom CEO Sergei Kirienko visited Dhaka and signed an EPC contract for the nuclear station in Bangladesh. Russia will offer a turn-key EPC solution for two power units with VVER-1200 reactors in Rooppur and construct all associated infrastructure.
