Pakistan starts work on second Chinese-made nuclear power station

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz launched work on the 325-megawatt power plant, a twin to an adjacent station of the same capacity already in service since 2000.

"Today's concrete-pouring ceremony of Chashma-2 marks yet another landmark in Pakistan-China relations and a milestone in the history of nuclear technology in Pakistan,"Aziz told a gathering of senior Chinese and Pakistani officials.

The 850-million-dollar project is expected to start production in 2011, a Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission spokesman told AFP.

The reactor design is based on China's Qinshan 1 nuclear reactor in its eastern province of Zhejiang.