Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Head of the Steering Committee for Nuclear Power Plant Construction has set a target of getting a nuclear power plant in Vietnam online by 2030. This comes after it was announced last year that Vietnam would be resuming its nuclear energy program.
Of note, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency it can take as little as five years, but also as many as 12, to build a nuclear power plant from when the first cement is poured. That said, there can also be a few years of planning that goes into the process before that.
Whereas Vietnam had done a lot of the early stage leg work a decade or so ago and put together plans for a nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province, these were abandoned in 2016. It’s not clear, nine years on, that these are still necessarily relevant. Moreover, to reach a 2030 deadline work would really need to start right now but this looks very unlikely.
See also: Nuclear Power in Vietnam: Unpacked 2024