French, British Sign Pacts on China A-Plant

China on Tuesday signed contracts with French and British firms to buy reactors and other equipment for a $3.7-billion nuclear power plant despite widespread opposition from residents of nearby Hong Kong.

French diplomats in Peking said the Daya Bay nuclear plant, 40 miles north of Hong Kong, is China’s largest single commercial venture with foreign firms.

Contracts for the joint venture were signed in Peking’s vast Great Hall of the People by the French companies Framatome and Electricite de France, Britain’s General Electric Co. and China’s Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co.

The French companies will provide the plant’s two 900-megawatt pressurized water reactors and the overall design plans. The British firm is supplying $300 million worth of turbine generators.

Daya Bay’s first reactor is scheduled to go on line in 1992, with a second expected to start the next year, according to a news release issued at the signing ceremony.

The plans for the plant sparked strong opposition from residents of Hong Kong after the Soviet nuclear accident at Chernobyl in April. Hong Kong critics say China has failed to draw up evacuation plans for the densely populated colony of 5.5 million in the event of a nuclear accident.

About 70% of the electricity from Daya Bay will be sold to energy-hungry Hong Kong, with the remainder distributed in southern China.

Site preparation, which began in April, 1984, is completed, and excavation work for the nuclear project began in August, the press release said.

Daya Bay is one of two nuclear stations under construction in China. The other, at Qinshan near Shanghai, is being built by the Chinese and is scheduled to go on line in 1988.