Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium producer Kazatomprom said Thursday that it set up a joint venture with France’s Areva, the world’s largest builder of atomic power plants, to make nuclear fuel for use in reactors in Asia by 2014.

The venture, 51 percent controlled by Kazatomprom and the rest by Areva, will build a fuel production line with capacity of 400 metric tons a year in the Ust-Kamenogorsk region of Kazakhstan.

Former Kazakh President Mukhtar Dzhakishev, who was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 14 years’ prison in March, said in September 2008 that Kazatomprom and Areva would invest $170 million in a nuclear-fuel venture. 

(Bloomberg)