The contract, which foresees construction starting later this year, was signed by Russian company Atomstroiexport and Bulgaria's National Electricity Company at a ceremony overseen by the countries' two presidents Vladimir Putin and Georgy Parvanov in Sofia.

Construction work on the first of the plant's two 1,000-megawatt pressurized-water reactors would begin in 2008, with the first reactor expected to be operational by January 2014 and the second a year later.

The reactors will have an operating life of up to 60 years.

French and German companies Areva and Siemens are subcontractors at the plant. And the project was hailed by Atomstroiexport as its first ever in an EU country.

"This is an important victory for Atomstroiexport and its subcontractors Areva and Siemens and opens the way to Russian nuclear technology in Europe," the Russian company had said on Thursday.

The project had originally been launched back in 1987, but was halted a couple of years later owing to pressure from environmentalists.

The project was then reopened in 2005 after it emerged that two of the four operational reactors at Bulgaria's only nuclear power plant at Kozloduy would have to be shut down in late 2006 for safety reasons.

Bulgaria used to be one of the Balkans' main exporters of energy, supplying some 7.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity abroad in 2006. But it was forced to cut off its exports after closing the Kozloduy reactors.

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