China has gained abundant experience constructing nuclear power plants and opened nine nuclear power generators, said Zhang Huazhu, director of the China's Atomic Energy Agency.

China has entered a new phase of nuclear power development and the country's installed nuclear power generating capacity is expected to increase from the current 8.7 million kw to 40 millionkw by 2020, Zhang said at the opening ceremony of the 13th International Nuclear Engineering Conference Tuesday.

The ratio of nuclear power in the country's total installed generating capacity will increase from the present 1.6 percent to 4 percent by 2020, he said.

Through 50 years of development, China has established a comprehensive nuclear power industrial system and is capable of designing and developing hydro-pressure nuclear power generating units with capacity ranging from 300,000 kw to 600,000 kw.

The 13th International Nuclear Engineering Conference was co-sponsored by the China Nuclear Institute, the US Mechanical Engineers Institute, the Japanese Mechanical Engineers Institute and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nearly 1,000 experts and representatives from both home and abroad attended the conference.

The first such conference was launched in 1991 with the previous conferences held in the United States, Japan and France.

Source: Xinhua