"The committee tasked with evaluating offers decided to open exclusive negotiations with Westinghouse at the end of February," the source said.

Another source nonetheless insisted that "the matter will be only really lost when the selection committee has officially chosen Westinghouse."

The French company said that "the tender was still in effect", and added: "No official decision by the Chinese authorities has been notified to Areva."

Last week, Areva president Anne Lauvergeon declined to comment at length on the tender process, noting only that it included a "growing political dimension".

Les Echos, a French business newspaper, reported Wednesday without naming its sources that Areva, a French state-controlled group, refused to match an offer from Westinghouse regarding technology transfers.

One of the sources who spoke to AFP said that Chinese authorities were trying to pressure Areva into conceding to demands for more transfer of nuclear technology.

Les Echos said that Areva feared that if it supplied China with its technology the Asian giant could create a rival nuclear group that would compete with the French firm in markets such as Brazil or India.

Westinghouse's proposed model currently exists only on paper, whereas the first copy of the design pitched by Areva is under construction in Finland.

But one of AFP's sources said that was actually an advantage for the US group -- which is being taken over by Toshiba of Japan -- because it would be easier for China to appropriate the technology of a "reactor on paper".

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