Turkey, Japan sign $22 bln nuclear power plant deal

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe signed the deal in Ankara. The firms will construct a 4,800 megawatt (MW) nuclear power plant in the Black Sea coastal city of Sinop.

The consortium will use French nuclear group Areva's Atmea type reactors, consortium sources said.

The bulk of the project will be financed by Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), Japan's export credit agency, and French credit insurer Coface. The firms will also carry out a site analysis for where Turkey's third planned nuclear power plant could be built.

"This deal is also the first step for Turkey's third nuclear power plant, which will be a Turkish engineering effort," Erdoğan said at the signing ceremony.

Fast-growing Turkey imports almost 97 percent of its energy needs. Erdoğan has been an advocate of its ambitious nuclear programme, which aims to help reduce dependence on hydrocarbons by providing 10 percent of its electricity needs by 2023.

Turkey is among the countries to which the Vienna-based UN nuclear agency has referred in its predictions of steady growth in nuclear power despite the Fukushima disaster in Japan two years ago.

Reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant triggered by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 shook the industry and raised questions over whether atomic energy was safe.

The Turkish deal is a major fillip for Abe, who has been advocating the safety standards of Japan's nuclear industry following the disaster.

Sources said the first Turkish reactor is slated to come online by 2023, with a fourth and final one operational in 2028, but Erdoğan said he hoped it could be completed earlier.

Turkey will hold a maximum 45 percent stake in the project company that is due to be established prior to construction. The stakes held by GDF Suez and Mitsubishi are yet to be finalised.

Russia's Rosatom will build Turkey's first nuclear power station and is due to start construction in mid-2015. It expects the facility to start producing electricity in 2019, its deputy general manager told Reuters in February.

That $20 billion plant at Mersin Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast will also have four power units with installed capacity of 4,800 MW.

Turkey calls for ‘immediate' FTA with Japan after nuke deal

Apart from the nuclear deal, Ankara is now pushing for even greater cooperation in trade with the world's third largest economy.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe is visiting Turkey to boost ties with the country. Ahead of a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Erdoğan, Abe met with Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan on Friday afternoon as part of a Turkish-Japanese business council meeting.

After meeting with Abe, Çağlayan said in an ambitious statement, “Negotiations between Turkey and Japan for a free trade agreement [FTA] should start immediately today, or tomorrow at the very latest.”

Keen to diversify its foreign trade amid fluctuations with its traditional partners, Turkey has signed FTAs with 19 countries so far -- the latest with South Korea, which went into effect this week.

Addressing Abe and the participants at Friday's meeting, Çağlayan called on Tokyo to contribute to cooperation with third countries along with mutual investment between Turkey and Japan.

"Turkey, in the westernmost end of Asia, is the largest economy connecting Europe and Asia in the world, as well as a country that has challenged the economic crisis in the world in the last four years," Çağlayan said.

"It is not only exports between the two countries. What really matters is expanding the mutual investments and using Turkish and Japanese business partnership in third markets," he said. Çağlayan added that trade between the two countries last year was below the desired level and stated: “This [mutual trade] figure does not reflect the real potential for the two countries. We would like to see Japanese firms take better advantage of the investment opportunities in Turkey than they currently do.”

Abe declined to comment on the FTA but did not stop short of commending Turkey's economic performance. Underlining that he has watched Turkey's economic success over the past decade with awe and admiration, Abe praised the decades-long friendship between the two nations.

Abe discussed with Erdoğan on Friday issues related to defense as well as his hopes that strategic dialogue between the countries will increase. “Our relations will take on a new dimension,” Abe added.

Speaking about the rivalry between İstanbul and Tokyo over their bids to host the 2020 Olympic Games, Abe said he will be the first one to congratulate İstanbul if the Turkish financial center wins the bid.

Erdoğan said he asked the Japanese prime minister to withdraw Tokyo's 2020 Olympic Games bid to let İstanbul host them instead.

Tokyo is competing with İstanbul and Madrid to host the Olympics for a second time after becoming the first Asian city to host the multi-sport event in 1964. İstanbul is bidding for a fifth time, as its previous campaigns were unsuccessful. The host of the 2020 Games will be decided at the next meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Argentina in September.