South Korea plans to help train Mexican atomic energy engineers and conduct joint research and development on nuclear technology, the government said Friday.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Seoul is ready to help Mexico City prepare qualified experts in the nuclear energy sector.
At present, the North American country operates the Laguna Verde 1 and 2 reactors built by GE that can generate a combined 1,365 megawatts of power.
This is roughly 4.6 percent of the country's power output.
Mexico has said it will conduct detailed feasibility studies for the next two years before making a decision on building more reactors. The country has recently started to show interest in nuclear energy.
The Federal Electricity Commission, a state-run power company, said it wants to build up to 10 reactors in the next 30 years and is pushing to get one new reactor online as early as 2021, which will have an output of 1,300-1,600 megawatts of power.
The ministry in charge of the country's industrial and energy policies said the plan to help Mexican engineers was reached on the sidelines of President Lee Myung-bak's visit to the country and may help Seoul secure building contracts if the country opts to build more reactors.
South Korea won a US$18.6 billion agreement with the United Arab Emirates late last year to build four reactors by 2020, while it is close to sealing a deal for two reactors with Turkey.