Pakistan in talks to buy Chinese N-reactors

Construction on the plants could start by 2015 and end 10 years later, the newspaper said, quoting an unidentified senior Pakistani official.

The new power stations would add 3,600-4,800 megawatts of capacity using a series of 600 megawatt reactors, according to the report.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz formally launched construction last week of a Chinese-supplied nuclear plant at Chashma in the eastern province of Punjab.

In September, Pakistan called on the United States and other Western countries for help in developing civilian nuclear technology that would meet its growing energy needs. However, there have been international concerns over Pakistan's activities since its top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted in 2004 selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Khan, once revered as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, ran a nuclear black market supplying technology to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.

Pakistan has said its civilian nuclear facilities are run under International Atomic Energy safeguards and it is ready to accept such measures if additional sites are built.