ISLAMABAD, May 12: Pakistan on Thursday opened a 330-megawatt nuclear power plant built with Chinese assistance, saying Beijing had been contracted to construct two more reactors in a bid to ease a crippling energy shortage.

The plant is at Chashma in Punjab, where a Chinese-aided power plant of similar capacity is already operational.

“Today is a proud day for Pakistan and for Pakistan's civil nuclear energy programme,” said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as he commissioned the second unit.

“It is yet another illustrious example of the Pakistan-China cooperation in the field of nuclear science and technology,” he said.

The opening of Chashma-2 comes as Mr Gilani is due to make a four-day official visit to China next week, with Pakistan under pressure over the US killing of Osama bin Laden in a covert raid in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2.

Pakistan regards China as its closest ally and views the deals as extremely important to its moribund economy, which was dealt a huge blow by catastrophic flooding last year and suffers from sluggish Western investment.

“Completion of this project takes to even greater heights the long and time-tested friendship between the two countries and their peoples,” said the prime minister.

Pakistan plans to produce 8,000MW of electricity by 2025 to address an energy shortfall which triggers violent protests each summer.

Mr Gilani confirmed that China has also been contracted to build two more reactors at the plant.Construction was already underway on power plants C-3 and C-4 to help pave the way for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission to meet the government-assigned target of 8,800MW by 2030, he said.

“The government of Pakistan will provide you full support to meet the targets,” he told Chinese and Pakistani experts.

Pakistan says its nuclear plants meet UN atomic watchdog safeguards.—AFP