Japanese government is considering giving up its bid to build the planned International ThermonuclearExperimental Reactor (ITER) in Rokkasho, north Japan's Aomori Prefecture, and bowing out of the race with the other candidate site in Cadarache, southern France, Kyodo News reported Wednesday.

The ballooning construction cost burden amid stalled negotiations has prompted Japan to consider withdrawing its bid, Kyodo said, citing reluctance from the Finance Ministry.

But the science and technology ministry maintains that the government's stance of seeking to win the bid remains unchanged.

"The ITER bid is still being negotiated and we have not given up," the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said in a statement. "We will work and negotiate with the European Union and other participating countries based on our policy of winning the bid to build the ITER in Rokkasho and realize the ITER project."

Japan proposed to the ITER international consortium in June 2004 that if Rokkasho is chosen, the country will pay for half of the ITER construction fee estimated at about 285 billion yen (2.69billion US dollars), up from 48 percent. It also suggested providing 46 billion yen (434 million dollars) for the construction of related facilities in the European Union.

The ITER plant is an experimental facility of thermonuclear fusion, at which nuclear fusion reactions that occur on the sun are produced by fusing the nuclei of heavy hydrogen and tritium atmore than 100 million C. The energy produced from 1 gram of fuel in the facility is equivalent to that of 8 tons of oil.

The project is expected to last 30 years, including 10 years for construction. The project is estimated to cost about 13 billion dollars.

The site selection process has remained a tug-of-war. But Japanand the European Union agreed in April to reach a political resolution by the Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July.

Source: Xinhua